The story of the pentagonal pocket.

In 1972, Kirsten Birke was an elite orienteering runner, and like most others, she used training clothes made of cotton. One of the disadvantages of pure cotton clothing is that it quickly becomes wet and heavy with sweat - and then also quickly cold to wear. Being quite an innovative woman, Kirsten came up with a brilliant idea and found a creative method of how she could transform fabric from sleeping bags into ground-breaking workout clothes.

You may have wondered why there is a pentagonal pocket on the front of your BIRKE anorak. What is the purpose and function of the pocket, why does it look the way it does, and who came up with the idea for it? You can find the answer to that here:

The sleeping bag fabric had a wide range of functional advantages, so with a background in her own sport, Kirsten sewed an anorak to which she added a very special pentagonal pocket. The purpose of the pocket was that the owner of the anorak should be able to store various effects - e.g. map and compass - during the race without losing them, as well as being able to quickly grab and store the effects away again. The way for BIRKE, an iconic anorak and a very special pocket was paved - and here 50 years later everyone is still on their way out there at high speed and 'still going strong'.

The former hunter soldier BS Christiansen quickly spotted BIRKE's technological innovation and the BIRKE suit's many functional advantages, and he himself used the suit for the first time in 1973 for the World Championship in military pentathlon - where he wore it in connection with running the obstacle course.

The BIRKE suit' - as it was popularly dubbed and called - then quickly spread to other hunter soldiers, frogmen and special police officers as well as a larger number of military units around the whole country.