Archies Footwear

A 27-year-old, a chuka physiotherapist sat in his grandfather's shed, shaping clay versions of an arch-supported thong he could not buy anywhere. He spent six months turning the clay into an injection mold with an industrial designer. Fourteen years later, that prototype sells through more than 3,000 Australian retail locations and ships into the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Japan. Daniel Jones founded Archie's footwear in 2011. The flip-flop category was dominated by Havaianas at the cheap end and Birkenstock at the premium and neither had built clinical arch support into the foam. Jones had spent his physio practice telling patients with lower back pain to throw their thongs out. Five years of trial and error followed. The first commercial pair sold from a card table at the Moama Saturday Market.