Saturday, March 13, 2010


Marquis Converse laid the foundation of the Converse Shoe Company in 1908. The company is also quite well-known as the Boston Rubber Shoe Company that has been producing quality shoes since the beginning of the 20th century. Their winterized rubber sole shoes are quite popular among kids, men and women. The company saw immense popularity in a very short span of time and just in two years it began to produce 4,000 pair of shoes per day. In 1915, the company also started the production of tennis shoes.

The company started the production of its well-known basketball shoes during 1917 and it was considered an impressive innovation as basketball wasn’t an old sport at that time. Converse shoes saw a big break when they were approved by famous basketball player Chuck Taylor as his favorite shoes.

Chuck Taylor had to suffer from sore feet in 1921, at that time the company came to his support and helped him to alleviate pain as well as provided him with a job in the company. Chuck Taylor was so much impressed with Converse shoes’ designs that he decided to work as an ambassador of the company to promote the brand all over the US. He also worked as a salesman for the company soon became its leading salesman. After some time, he suggested few changes in the design of the shoes and thus the shoes got the name of Star basketball shoes that were also called “Cons” , “Chucker Boots” , “Chucks” and “Converse” for their high styling.

To match with the uniform colors of some specific basketball team, Converse’s colored shoelaces got tremendous popularity with their traditional white and black trademark during 1966. The consumers began to demand for more shoes’ varieties and the basketball teams also pressurized for shoes of their specific colors. Thus it became the cause of not only of more colors but also of more styles in basketball shoes. The company introduced high-top, knee-high and Oxford versions of their shoes soon. Different materials like vinyl, leather, hemp and denim were used for the construction of these shoes.

Afterward, some other versions, which held up by elastic, were introduced and these versions were without laces.

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