Dr. Martens: prime for a kicking?

The Times, today, 25/10/13

People buy things. Brands, companies, buildings and so on. And when they do one wonders what will happen. If you're working for a company which is bought by a behemoth, you wonder if the company you bought into will survive. In common parlance, will they f*ck it up? Sanitise it, merge and dovetail it to the point where it means nothing at all? After all, why buy something for its specialness and then homogenise it? But they do.

Which brings me to this. DM's. 
OK, they began life as a German product but they're as British as fish and chips, deep-fried Mars Bars and Alan Partridge. They've been sold to an investment group, Premira. That in itself is a worry, since history is littered with stories about investors who bought something that meant a lot to others but nothing to them except money and so they screwed it up because they had no real empathy with what they had bought. One recent example is that of Little Chef, which has featured several times in this blog.

They should be very careful with this one. DM's are not mere shoes. They are the keepers of souls, lives, beliefs, times, fashion history, happiness, tragedy...for many, they're soulmates. They don't just contain feet. They lace together people around the world who love this product...have grown-up with this product. They'd better show some respect.