Converse Origins

Converse, founded in 1908 has 113 years of footwear experience under their belt. In that time nearly everyone has/had a pair of Converse shoes, the infamous Chuck Taylor being the staple and by far the most famous sneaker ever to have graced the footwear industry.

In the brands long history, they have accomplished a lot. Before becoming a subsidiary to Nike in 2003, Converse was one of the only athletic footwear brands making a serious mark. Dominating the American court shoe market for nearly half a century, they sadly lost its podium spot as newer brands entered. This was down to new design concepts and technologies being produced by their competitors during the 1970s.

Marquis Mills Converse, founded the Converse Rubber Shoe Company in February 1908. Similar to other brands like New Balance, their original aim wasn’t to make athletic footwear. Over the years, Converse has produced winterised rubber soles, military boots, vulcanised rubber and much more before they made their way into the athletic footwear market. 50 years prior to them preparing their entry into athletic footwear, Charles Goodyear received his patent to vulcanise rubber. With vulcanised rubber, new technology and the demand in the sneaker industry, this gave Converse the direct means to create game changing footwear.

Starting with court based sports, Converse launched ‘No Skid’ which was the pioneering product during the brands early years, creating a super grippy outsole this became extremely useful in sports like Basketball.

Charles ‘Chuck’ Taylor joined the brand in 1921. Believe it or not, at this stage of his career, he was only a semi professional basketball player and joined Converse as a salesman. It only took him a year to get the brand to listen to his improvements for the design of the ‘No Skids’, by 1932 he was even able to get the brand to rename the ‘No Skid’ thus creating the infamous Converse 'Chuck Taylor'. Converse struck so much success off the back of these product developments that they held 80% of the market share within sports shoe industry in 1957.

With the growing popularity of brands such as Nike, adidas and Puma, Converse began to drop off slightly between the 70s and early 2000s, this drop only helped with the brands now symbolic nature within fashion.

Although they are seen as a staple sneaker brand and one of the oldest brands on the market they still had their struggles. In 2001 the brand filed bankruptcy. Not long after Converse had to shut down their last U.S manufacturer and move all production overseas. A low point for the brand but thanks to Nike in 2003 they were saved and has been able to continue to grow and show off the proud heritage they were able to create.

Did You Know: During WWII Converse took a step away from there consumer market and began to make shoes solely for the military.