Converse’s All Star “Chuck Taylor” shoes are everywhere. From the feet of disaffected teenagers with long mops of hair to 30-something film directors with cropped hair and European glasses to basketball players with long, shiny shorts, the footwear has come to mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. Some see the shoe as the mark of the counter-culturists, but the white-rubber-soled canvas sneakers are too ubiquitous to be part of anybody’s radical revolution. (They are sold at Target). So how did a humble basketball shoe become a symbol of wannabe radicals and basketball stars all over the United States? Here’s a brief history of the best selling tennis shoe of all time.
The Converse Rubber Corporation started making rain boots and other work-related rubber shoes in 1908. They began only manufacturing seasonally—during the rainy season—until they realized they could make more shoes more efficiently working year round on athletic shoes, specifically for basketball.
The first All Star basketball shoe was created in natural browns with a black trim in 1917. By the 1920’s, Converse started producing the shoe in black canvas and leather versions with a thick rubber sole and a portion of the shoe covering the wearer’s ankle. This early production made the shoe the first mass produced shoe in North America. However, early sales of Converse’s product were poor.
Charles “Chuck” H. Taylor, a basketball player on the Akron Firestones, helped boost the shoe’s sale. Taylor himself wore the shoe and thought it was helpful for any basketball player’s game. In 1921, he started selling the All Star and acting as a player and coach for the Converse All-Stars basketball team. He boosted the shoe’s sale throughout the country with clever marketing ploys like basketball clinics and Converse Basketball Yearbooks.
Because of Taylor’s salesmanship, Converse added his name to the All Star’s ankle patch in 1932.
Taylor continued to popularize the shoe throughout the 1930’s and ‘40’s. He created the white high top with blue and red trim for the 1936 Olympics. Taylor, an Air Force captain during WWII, helped market white All Stars for GI’s to use for their exercises. The shoe became the official sneaker of the Air Force.
After the War, the shoe had become so popular that all professional and college basketball players swore by it. In 1957, Converse held 80% of the sneaker industry. James Dean even wore the now-famous shoe.
In the 1960’s and ‘70’s, Americans started wanting athletic shoes for everyday wear. The low-top shoe became very popular with non-basketball players, like rock musicians and young people because of the shoe’s inexpensiveness in contrast with other sneaker brands. Punk bands were especially attracted to the brand and the relationship between Chuck Taylors and punk music was solidified.
The shoe had become fashionable and Converse knew it. Because of this, in 1966, Converse dropped the stipulation that the shoe could only be produced in black and white colors, introducing shoes with prints, patterns and new colors.
Today, more than 60% of Americans have reported owning a pair of the famous shoe. 800,000,000 pairs of the sneakers have been sold, making the simple shoe a phenomenal bestseller for over seventy years.