Sara and Bahman Irvani

Inc: The lives of Bahman Irvani and his daughter, Sara Irvani, have followed the same trajectory. Both were born to successful entrepreneurs and worked, as children, in their parents' shoe companies. Both attended boarding school in England and studied finance at Cambridge. Both intended to take over their family businesses.

But Bahman never succeeded his father. The 1979 Iranian Revolution swept away the family's footwear company--a multinational enterprise with 60 factories--15 months after he joined full time. Sara's succession looks more propitious. Last year, she became CEO of Okabashi, a plastic sandal and flip-flop manufacturer founded by Bahman in 1984. In March, she unveiled a fresh direction for the business with a new line of eco-friendly shoes under the name Third Oak.

Okabashi--a Japanese word that, according to Sara, has no specific meaning but is associated with wellness--resides in Buford, Georgia, 40 miles northeast of Atlanta. Once known as the "Leather City," Buford has a footwear legacy: A large shoe factory operated there until 1941 and reopened to serve the military during World War II. Okabashi occupies a 100,000-square-foot facility ringed by trees in a manufacturing park. It is the same building in which Bahman--optimistically, given the circumstances--launched the business during an outsourcing wave.

Starting with so much capacity "is like buying a suit that is two sizes two large," Bahman says philosophically. "Over time, you grow into it."

Today, the plant teems with activity, as 200 employees produce roughly 1.2 million pairs of flip-flops and sandals a year. The products comprise three brands: the flagship Okabashi line, sold at drug stores and some specialty shops (retail price: $20); Oka-B, a higher-end line for boutiques and spas (between $30 and $60); and Third Oak ($30 to $40), which are currently available online and destined for department stores.

Okabashi is a wellness brand. The typical buyer is over 40 and concerned about comfort and foot health. So, to attract Millennial customers, Sara created Third Oak, spotlighting a long-hidden virtue: Okabashi has been green virtually since the get-go. The company's eco-friendliness "is not something we talk about with Okabashi and Oka-B," Sara says. Third Oak "is my way of saying let's share what we are doing."

Rob Whalen, head of purchasing and wholesale at the Made in America Store, first encountered Okabashi 28 years ago while running a Woolworth's. He has stocked them in the seven-store chain since its launch in 2010, and the sandals are consistently among Made in America's top-five sellers. "We have tour buses come to our store. We take them on the buses and show the different styles and people love them," Whalen says. "At Woolworth, it was the older generation buying them, but now we do very well with younger people, too."

A revolution and a rebirth
In Iran, the Irvanis were footwear royalty. Mohamad Irvani founded the Melli Shoe Company in 1958 and grew it into one of the largest shoe manufacturers in the Middle East, employing 10,000 people and churning out everything from work boots to sneakers to kids' shoes. His son, Bahman, helped out there until age 13, when he moved to England for boarding school. After studying economics at Cambridge and working in London as a CPA, Bahman returned to Iran to join the family business full time. It was 1977.

In February 1979, the monarchy fell and the new theocratic government nationalized Melli. The Irvanis fled to England. "We lost 99 percent of what we had," Bahman says. "We cried for about a year and then decided either we spend the rest of our lives looking back or looking forward. We decided let's move forward."

Attracted by the Reagan era's pro-business climate, the Irvanis chose to start again in the United States. They targeted the Atlanta region for its international airport. With bank loans and the last of the family's capital, Bahman acquired land in Buford and set up a factory, borrowing technology and processes from German, Italian, and Japanese companies that had once partnered with Melli. "This was exactly when the dollar was getting stronger and the shoe business was moving to China," he says. "Our timing was terrible."

Their idea, however, was good. In the U.S. at the time, plastic sandals were cheap and cheaply made, with small regard for comfort or aesthetics. Bahman would make plastic versions of Japanese leather sandals, incorporating reflexology beads in the footbeds to massage and stimulate the feet. At $8 retail, Okabashi shoes cost four times as much as their competitors. "But it was a proper shoe that gave you the right balance, the right posture, and had therapeutic features," says Bahman.

Even at $8, plastic sandals didn't provide the big shoe chains with sufficient margins, so Bahman switched his focus to drug stores and supermarkets. Walgreens and CVS picked up the brand in the early '90s, significantly goosing sales. In 2006, the company launched the higher-end Oka-B line. "Those are our company's two big milestones," Bahman says. "The third one is passing the baton to my daughter." >>>