So the number one generic response to someone seeing our Ethletic shoes is “Oooooooooo, they look like Chuck Taylor’s.” Then we SIGH. And say, “Noooooooooo, these are just SO much better”. After all, Converse’s version of this classic shoe is made in a dirty sweatshop in China with totally toxic materials. They are, just overall, BAD for our earth.

But curiosity got the best of us and we started to wonder: how did the international phenom of Converse and their uber popular Chuck Taylor even come into being? A quick search on the internet solved the mystery.

It all started way back in 1908 (wow!), when Marquis Mills Converse fell down the stairs, inspiring the Massachusetts entrepreneur (yikes, we’re neighbors!!) to create a non-slip rubber soled shoe. Thus began the Converse Rubber Shoe Company.

Within a short 2 years, Converse’s new company was selling over 4,000 pairs of shoes a day (sorry, but we must insert here shameless plug to buy Ethletics). In 1915, the company produced their first athletic shoe made for tennis, and in 1917, the Converse All-Star as we know it today was born. (Damn...so when we say classic, we really really mean classic! This shoe is 100 years old!).

The shoes were actually not that popular. But then this seemingly awkward basketball player named Charles H. Taylor came to Converse complaining of sore feet.

With his new comfy basketball boots on, Chuck Taylor became the ambassador for Converse, selling and promoting the shoes all the way to 1969.
In 1966, basketball teams and their fans got fed up with the traditional red high-top and demanded that more colors and styles be produced so that they could wear their team colors.

Of course though, like every small business, not everything remained so peachy keen. From the 1970’s on, Converse started to feel the heat from new competitors like Adidas, Nike and Reebok. They were all of sudden ripped of their title as the preferred shoe for the National Basketball Association (they are after all not that comfortable or even remotedly suited for today’s game).

The company filed for bankruptcy in January of 2001. At that same time, they closed their very last USA factory and went offshore to China (yes, it’s time for a collective sob). In 2003, the company sold for $305 million (so much for bankruptcy) to their rival (and just overall evil corporation) Nike. While Nike has certainly revitalized the brand and made sure that every youth in the entire world is wearing a pair of Converse, they also decreased the quality of the shoes (namely using low-grade totally fake rubber and switching from 2-ply canvas to 1-ply “textile” – whatever that is). And let’s not even go into the laundry list of human rights and sweatshop abuses the company is infamous for.

Now a fashion brand much more so than a sports brand, Converse has inspired all kinds of knock-offs, such as PF Flyers, which are surprisingly still in existence and owned by New Balance. They also interestingly lay claim to be the original American sneaker brand (although they debuted much later in 1937), as well as creating the “breakthrough” low-top courtesy of yet another old timer “basketball legend” Bob Cousy. Somehow, “Cousies” just don’t ring like “Chucks”!

We at Autonomie of course prefer the newest incarnation of Converse: our ultra-cute, ultra-ethical, ultra-eco, truly one of kind Ethletics!

But if you have one of the old-school, made-in-the-USA Chucks (that are probably at this point totally falling a part), share your story and post a photo of the shoes under comments!

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