Adidas History Review
Shortly after World War I in the early 1920s the Dassler family decided to set up a shoemaking business in Herzogenaurach, a town in Bavaria. The sisters and mother cut out the patterns and the brothers – Adi and Rudolf and their father cut out shoes. At first the family workers produced canvas shoes for runners’ trainings. Rudi undertook the marketing of the products and Adi internalized the production and designed new models.
Four years later 12 workers including the family members were producing 50 pairs of shoes per day. In the year 1924 Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory was established. In 1925 Adi, an inveterate football player, designed cleats. It was then that both canvas shoes and cleats became the main production of the company. The company was doing so well that several years later the brothers leased the whole building as a shoe factory, took new workers on the staff and increased double the production.
With the outbreak of World War II the times were hard for the brand. Dassler brothers Shoe Factory was confiscated and the brothers had to go to the front. However, one year later Adi Dassler was returned to Herzogenaurach to produce training footwear for German soldiers. In 1945 the town became a part of an American occupation zone and Rudi was put into prisoner-of-war camp. The Dasslers, being imposed a war indemnity, had to work for the USA. At that time the company manufactured hockey skates and received in return written-off accoutrements of the US army and old baseball gloves.
When Rudi returned home the brothers began to work together again but they no longer understood each other. They had to start their shoe business from scratch. In 1948 after their father’s death the brothers decided to demerge the company into two separate companies. Moreover, the brothers agreed not to use the name and the logo of the former company. That’s how the well-known at that time brand disappeared …
Adi named his company Addas and Rudi - Ruda but as soon as several months later Addas tuned into Adidas (abbreviatin for Adi Dassler) and Ruda into Puma. One year later Adi broke the agreement regarding the company’s logo: he added the third stripe to the two stripes of Dassler company’s former logo and in 1949 took out a patent for the new logo. The brothers were no longer speaking to each other till their death and Puma and Adidas became brand competitors.
In 1954 German team with Adidas spike football boots on won for the first time the World Soccer Championship. This year the company began to manufacture Adidas sports bags and tracksuits with a three stripes logo on the sleeve.
In January 2009 in Taiwan Adidas company is going to release a new Adidas ‘Diamond Pack’ to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the brand. The pack includes a T-shirt and Adidas Superstar sneakers. The colours are restrained black and white. Moreover, the lateral side of each foot of the shoe is embellished with six 0.2 carat diamonds. The sneakers are finished off with Swarovski crystals on the shoes’ toes and. The ones on the tongues can be removed and worn as a pendent. Besides the crystals on the shoes, 409 Swarovski crystals decorate the logo in front of the T-shirt.
Ferragamo Designer Women Shoes
It was Salvatore Ferragamo who provided many famous women with gorgeous shoes and the women adored Ferragamo shoes. Marilyn Monroe preferred 4in. high Ferragamo stilettos, Audrey Hepburn was crazy about Ferragamo ballet slippers and Judy Garland liked phantasmagoric Ferragamo platform shoes. The great master succeeded to find a unique and individual approach to every woman.
That’s how unique silk Ferragamo shoes for Sophia Loren, velvet Ferragamo pumps for Monroe, golden open-toe Ferragamo sandals for Carmen Miranda - a famous Brazilian dancer were designed, as well as futuristic open-toe Ferragamo sandals for Judy Garland and ‘invisible’ sandals from a fishing line. The famous shoemaker used to say, ‘Ten minutes after putting on new shoes you still should feel comfortable.”
Salvatore Ferragamo was born at the end of the 19th century in an Italian village. At the age of 8 he made his first pair of shoes and at the age of 16 he moved to the USA and soon he became the most famous shoemaker in Hollywood. He learned anatomy and mathematics in order to be able to design perfect shoes. It was he who invented wedgies. Among his patrons were Pola Negri and Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson. It was Salvatore Ferragamo who was first to experiment with fur and fish leather.
It was rather difficult to design shoes for celebrities but Ferragamo managed to remember all their habits and whims. For example the Countess of Windsor never wore new styles but placed identical white satin shoe orders as she used to dye them to match her dresses. Marlene Dietrich wore each pair of shoes only two times. Mussolini’s mistress Clara Petacci engaged herself in competition with famous Evita. When the latter was executed the former left fifty pairs of the ordered and unpaid shoes in Ferragamo’s workshop.
Shortly before his death in 1960 Salvatore Ferragamo wrote an autobiography that had the title ‘Shoemaker of Dreams’. After Ferragamo’s death the management of the company Salvatore Ferragamo was passed into the hands of Ferragamo’s sons. The company has been making shoes for Madonna, Dru Barrymore, Brigitte Bardot, Julia Roberts, and Meryl Streep, etc. No doubt that Salvatore Ferragamo shoes will make any woman unique and charming.
