Converse

Converse was founded in 1908 in Malden, Massachusetts by Marquis Mills Converse as the Converse Rubber Shoe Company. The original product was winterised galoshes; the breakthrough came in 1917 with the All Star — a canvas-and-rubber basketball shoe that quickly became the de facto basketball shoe of the early 20th century. In 1921 the company hired Charles 'Chuck' Taylor, a high-school basketball star, as a sales rep; he had his signature added to the All Star's ankle patch in 1932, and the shoe has been known as the Chuck Taylor All Star ever since. The All Star reigned as basketball's dominant shoe for decades. It only began ceding court territory to Nike, Adidas, and others in the 1970s and 80s. Concurrently, the shoe migrated from athletic context into rock-and-roll uniform (the Ramones, Joey Ramone, the Strokes, Kurt Cobain) and skate culture. The Jack Purcell (a separate 1935 silhouette acquired by Converse in the 1970s), the One Star, and the Run Star Hike are the brand's other canonical models. Converse was acquired by Nike in 2003 for $305M, and operates as a Nike subsidiary. The brand has run sustained collaboration programmes with Comme des Garçons (the heart-and-eyes line), JW Anderson, Off-White, Tyler the Creator's Golf Wang, Stüssy, Brain Dead, and dozens of others. The Chuck Taylor All Star has now produced over a billion pairs across more than a century — likely the most-sold sneaker silhouette ever.