Part of an ongoing series of 29Secrets stories, taking a deep dive into the history of legendary beauty products and iconic fashion moments…
By Christopher Turner
Illustration by Michael Hak
Through the last century, the Converse Chuck Taylor All Star has firmly established itself as the most versatile shoe in history, which is probably why almost everyone – regardless of their affinity for or dedication to the sneakersphere – has a pair in their rotation. Initially developed as a basketball shoe in the early 20th century, its design is instantly recognizable and has remained largely unchanged since its introduction. Not bad for a shoe that’s more than a century old.
Converse, like many other brands in the early 1900s, started as a rubber company, founded in 1908 in Malden, Massachusetts. In 1915, Converse created a shoe geared towards tennis and another rubber-based sneaker built for traction – and within two years, the Converse “All Star” was created for on-court athletics, taking advantage of the basketball mania starting to spread across North America.
As for Chuck Taylor the man? He was an Indiana-born All-American basketball player (he played for the early iteration of the Boston Celtics) and well-known coach who signed on to sell Converse shoes from the company’s Chicago sales office in 1921. Within a few years, Taylor was an integral part of the company’s success and was recognized with the first signature sneaker of all time when Converse altered the patch on the ankle of their popular All Star sneaker with his name. The Converse Chuck Taylor All Star was born.
The basic design of the sneaker hasn’t changed since 1949 – and no one is really complaining, which means the company must be doing something right. Here’s a look back at the evolution of the legendary Converse Chuck Taylor All Star, the world’s first signature sneaker.
In the beginning…
In 1908, Marquis Mills Converse founded the Converse Rubber Corporation and opened the doors for business in Malden, Massachusetts. Originally, Converse produced galoshes and other work-related rubber shoes, but by 1915 the seasonal company had shifted gears and had begun making athletic canvas shoes, offering year-round work to Converse employees.
A few years prior in 1900, the A.G. Spalding and Bros. company had developed the first “basketball” shoe, a canvas high-top with a pitted rubber sole for traction purposes. Their innovation hit a sweet spot: over the next few years, basketball mania began to spread across the United States, and eventually Canada. Converse wasn’t far behind: after coming up with athletic canvas shoes, the company began development of a casual shoe that people could wear to hit the courts, intended to compete with A.G. Spalding’s rubber-soled shoe. The result? In 1917, the world’s very first performance basketball shoe came off the Massachusetts factory lines. The Converse “non-skid” canvas shoe (the precursor to the modern All Star shoe) was the first of its kind, and was released in natural brown colours with a black trim and a thick rubber sole. It was an evolution in footwear, notable for being the very first mass-produced shoe, designed specifically for basketball players in North America.
By the 1920s, the distinctive brown canvas basketball shoe, rebranded the “All Star,” was available at select retailers in an all-black canvas and leather version. Sales were slow at first, but it would only be a matter of time before sales would rapidly increase, thanks to a man named Charles H. Taylor.
The All-American basketball player turned sneaker salesman and marketer
Charles Hollis Taylor was born on June 24, 1901, in rural Brown County, Indiana, and laced up his first pair of Converse canvas basketball shoes in 1917, the year the shoes were first produced and Taylor was still a high school basketball player at Columbus High School. After he played guard position on his high school basketball team, Taylor went on to play semi-professionally with the Original Boston Celtics and the Akron Firestone Non-Skids basketball teams (before the organization of leagues as we now know them).
In 1921, Taylor headed to Chicago in search of a job…and he found one. S.R. “Bob” Pletz was in charge of the Converse sales office at the time, and he hired Taylor as a salesman and player coach for the Converse All Stars, the company’s industrial basketball league. The job saw Taylor spend the majority of his illustrious career travelling across the United States hosting basketball clinics and exhibitions, eventually becoming an ambassador for the game of basketball and for Converse.
Within a year of Taylor’s arrival at Converse, the company had adopted his suggestions of changing the design of the Converse All Star shoe to provide enhanced flexibility and support to players. The restyled shoe also included a distinctive star-shape logo on the patch that protected the ankle.
Taylor was so integral to the early marketing and success of both the brand and the early All Star shoe that, more than a decade into his career with the Converse Corporation, the company recognized him for his priceless contributions. In 1934, the “Chuck Taylor” signature was added to the ankle patch and the Converse Chuck Taylor All Star basketball shoe was born, making it the first-ever signature basketball shoe.
Joe Dean, who worked with Taylor as a sales executive for Converse for nearly 30 years, told The Philadelphia Inquirer, “It was impossible not to like him, and he knew everybody. If you were a coach and you wanted to find a job, you called Chuck Taylor. Athletic directors talked to him all the time when they were looking for a coach.”
Olympic dreams
Taylor was living in hotels as a travelling Converse salesman, with a trunk full of basketball shoes with him at all times, hosting basketball clinics across the United States. In fact, his personal home address was listed as the Converse headquarters and he kept a locker at the company’s warehouse for storage. As he relentlessly travelled the country, the Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars continued to grow in popularity through the early 1930s as basketball teams – and boys all across America – began wearing the canvas shoes. Thanks to Taylor, it was only a matter of time before numerous professional basketball players were all wearing All Stars. But something bigger was on the horizon for the brand and their enthusiastic salesman.
Basketball became an official Olympic sport in 1936, and the US basketball team headed to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin wearing white high-top canvas Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars that featured a blue and red trim, which Taylor had helped design. The Chuck Taylor All Star shoe remained the official shoe of the American Olympic team from 1936 until 1968 and Team USA dominated the sport, going undefeated for 63 straight games and winning seven consecutive gold medals…with a little help from their Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars. The shoe, with its patriotic red and blue trim, was an instant favourite both on and off the court, and you can still buy the same white canvas models today.
World War II
On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, triggering World War II. Taylor was commissioned in the US Navy and later transferred to the US Army, but he was too old to serve in combat. However, he served as a captain in the US Air Force and coached regional basketball teams, which were considered important morale boosters for the troops.
And Taylor wasn’t the only one to head off to war in support of his country…. Converse footwear went to war, too. In 1942, Converse shifted production to support the war effort by designing the A6 Flying Boot – worn by the entire US Army Air Corps. Also, the white high-top Chuck Taylor All Star sneaker became the official sneaker of the US Armed Forces, and GIs wore them for basic training.
Before leaving the US military in 1945, Taylor had recruited pilots and become a fitness consultant for the US military, in addition to conducting physical fitness programs for new recruits.
The NBA and beyond
After World War II ended in September 1945, the Converse Chuck Taylor All Star continued to evolve. When the classic black and white Chuck Taylor All Star high-top was introduced in 1949, it became an instant hit.
Thanks in part to Team USA’s success through the years at the Olympics, basketball was now a major professional sport. The merger of the National Basketball League and the Basketball Association of America to create the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1949 called for a signature shoe to be added to the uniform of every team, and the Converse Chuck Taylor All Star high-top fit the bill perfectly. The distinctive black and white high-tops became the go-to shoe not only for professional players, but also for college, high school and all serious basketball players.
It was beginning to make waves off the court as well. In 1957, the company introduced the oxford model, a low-cut version of the high-top Chuck Taylor All Star, and the shoes became a popular go-to as a more casual alternative. How popular? It’s estimated that by this time, Converse had managed to secure a whopping 80 per cent share of the entire sneaker industry in North America.
RIP Chuck
Because of his tireless efforts promoting the sport, Taylor was recognized as an “Ambassador to Basketball” and in 1969, he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Later that same year, Taylor retired from Converse, but on June 23, 1969, he died of a heart attack in Port Charlotte, Florida, just one day short of his 68th birthday. He was buried at Restlawn Memorial Gardens in Port Charlotte, Florida.
Unfortunately, along with the passing of Chuck Taylor went the dominance of the Converse Corporation. New rival companies, like the Nike Corporation, stepped in and began to chip away at the market share and influence of Converse. These rival companies introduced new models with new colours, all-leather uppers and high-tech innovations like pumps and air cells…and they grabbed customers’ attention.
Even basketball teams, despite their previous loyalty to the Chuck Taylor All Stars, started to flock towards other brands. Not even a variety of new colours and new models could compete with the advances that were being made elsewhere in athletic footwear.
Chucks
The 1970s kicked off a more casual era of fashion, and the Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars began being widely referred to as “Chucks.” Athletic shoes became so popular as everyday footwear that new shoe companies quickly popped up, offering a wide variety of basketball and other sport and leisure shoes. Converse responded to the strong competition that was emerging throughout the ’70s by introducing Chucks in a variety of colours.
Chucks, once the premier shoe of elite basketball players, now became the affordable shoe of the counter-culture and of baby boomers, rock stars, artists and teenagers. Converse responded by embracing the leisure shoe concept and began manufacturing Chucks in hundreds of different variations including prints, patterns, vibrant colours, and special models specifically marketed to different age groups. The brand’s thought process? Now there was so much variety that even if you and all your friends had a pair of Chucks, yours still had their own unique personality.
Everyone and anyone might have been wearing Chucks, but things were about to change. The 1980s and 1990s were rough for the Converse Corporation as the ownership and management changed several times. Instability, bad business decisions and a dramatic loss of market share took their toll on the company, and in 2001 it was forced to file for bankruptcy.
But the brand was too well established to be abandoned, and new ownership eventually took over. After closing all North American manufacturing locations and moving the manufacture of Converse athletic shoes (including the Chuck Taylor All Stars) from the United States to Asia, the brand successfully re-established itself in 2003, when rival company Nike purchased Converse for US$309 million.
Chuck Taylor All Star ’70 and Chuck Taylor All Star II
Keeping up with the demands of sneaker culture, in 2013 Converse launched the Chuck Taylor All Star ’70, which featured a build similar to the Chuck Taylor All Stars. The ’70 model featured thicker canvas, a higher rubber midsole and foxing, thicker cushioning, a smaller toe cap, extra material that was stitched on the side wall behind the toe cap for reinforcement, a one-piece rubber bottom sole versus the three-piece sole on the modern All Stars, and a black heel patch versus a white one on the modern All Star.
Two years later, on July 28, 2015, Converse launched the next evolution of its uber popular Chuck Taylor All Star sneaker in stores around the globe. The Chuck Taylor All Star II wasn’t a replacement for the iconic sneaker or a special edition; it was intended to be an update and an additional offering from the brand. The silhouette of the Chuck Taylor All Star II is exactly the same as that of its predecessor, but the inside of the new sneaker features plenty of innovative updates, including a padded no-slip tongue, a perforated micro-suede lining for comfort, unique white foxing, and a more cushioned sole with plenty of arch support (thanks to Nike’s famous Lunarlon cushioning foam technology).
Chuck’s here to stay
Despite all of the innovations and changes in the athletic shoe industry, the Chuck Taylor All Star sneaker continues to live on. They’ve been embraced by sports fanatics and worn by everyone from small-town basketball teams to Olympic athletes, and they are a favourite of the music industry, famously worn by everyone from Elvis Presley to The Ramones and Kurt Cobain. The Rolling Stones even made the Chuck Taylor All Star the official sneaker of their “Steel Wheels Tour” back in 1989. The sneakers have also seen their fair share of red-carpet events. Celebs like Drew Barrymore, Ryan Gosling and Kristen Stewart have shown up at high-profile premieres and award shows wearing them.
Throughout the years, the legendary kicks have been produced in a myriad of colors and patterns. More recently, the iconic sneaker brand has continued to update the look of its signature kicks and appeal to new consumers with high-profile collaborations with DC Comics, Andy Warhol, Maison Martin Margiela, Missoni and Comme des Garçons Play. Doesn’t appeal to you? If you order online, you even have an option to design your own pair of custom-made Chucks, which plays on the best part of the shoes – their versatility.
As for the numbers? Today, two pairs of Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars are sold every second of every day worldwide, and the canvas sneaker has truly reached icon status. Unlike other sneakers that seem to eventually lose their popularity, Chucks remain fashionable, and people are almost fanatical in their devotion to them. It’s unlikely that trend will change any time soon. As the decades pass, these simple but timeless sneakers are rediscovered and adapted by millions of people in each new generation, who love the look and versatility of the sneaker that hasn’t changed its design since 1949.
While Converse will probably never stop coming up with innovative ways to evolve as a brand, the Chuck Taylor All Star sneaker, in both the high-top and low-cut oxford models, will always be known as the quintessential American sneaker.
Want more? You can read other stories from our The Story Of series right here.
