Do you remember your very first pair of Converse shoes? Think back to high school when wearing that black or red pair of Converse shoes made you feel cool. The company has been making shoes since the early 1900s and is now the largest maker of athletic footwear in America. It's most famous line is the Converse All-Star basketball shoe was the very first athletic shoe in the industry. Today the company manufactures much more than just basketball shoes. It also has a large collection of apparel, tennis shoes, running shoes, team sports merchandise and much more.
The genius behind Converse is a guy named Marquis M. Converse. He started a company named the Converse Rubber Shoe Company in Massachusetts. He designed and created shoes for men, women and children that were rubber soled and great for the winter. He had a good thing going but it wasn't' until the company started making athletic shoes in 1915 that the company was poised to change the shoe business. Two years later Converse met a basketball player named Charles H. "
Chuck" Taylor who complained of having sore feet. Converse created a shoe for him and gave him a job as a promoter of the shoe. You could say this was one of the very first athlete endorsements.
The
Chuck Taylor shoe spawned many nicknames that are still used to day when referring to Converse shoes: Cons,
Chucks,
Chuckers, Verses and more. For a long time The
Chuck Taylor only came in black but in 1966 the company decided to expand to other colors and even different materials including leather and vinyl. The shoes come in high-tips, knee-high, and low-cut styles.
