ThE WaNtEd FaShIoNs....

Their fans range from skinheads to fashion models – and more than 100 million pairs have been sold worldwide since they made their debut. Ralph Miller and Susie Mesure salute Dr Martens boots as they celebrate their half century.

1. When it comes to British icons, Dr Martens are up there with the red telephone box, fish and chips and the black taxi. Yet the thick-soled, lace-up boot is actually German.

2. An injured Dr Klaus Märtens, who was an army doctor during the Second World War, came up with the air-cushioned sole to soften the impact of walking around after a skiing injury sustained in 1945 while on leave from the German army; he found army-issue boots too uncomfortable.

3. Dr Märtens had little success in selling his creation until a meeting with an old friend, Dr Herbert Funck, got the fledgling business off the ground.

4. The boots have a green heritage: the duo recycled discarded rubber from former Luftwaffe airfields to make their first pairs, which went on sale in Munich in 1947.

5. Those air-padded soles clearly appealed to German housewives – 80 per cent of sales during that first decade were to women.

6. The boots were so popular that Dr Märtens soon started thinking about selling them abroad. The Griggs family, who were based in Northamptonshire, liked what they saw and acquired the rights to manufacture the German design in the UK.

7. Before the first pair went on sale in Britain, Griggs reshaped the heel, added the trademark yellow stitching and trademarked the "bouncing" soles as AirWair.

8. Griggs also anglicised the name, to Dr Martens. (Just as well the original pair didn't go with Dr Funck.)

9. Later, the boots were nicknamed Doc Martens, DMs or simply Docs.

10. The original eight-holed pair was christened the 1460 because it first went on sale on 1 April 1960.

11. The boots were initially sold with factory workers, policemen and postmen in mind, but were quickly adopted by skinheads in London's East End.

12. A whole range of subcultures soon started wearing Docs, including mods, punks and Goths.