Nike Logo History Review, part 1
Nike brand history is inseparably connected with Phil Knight, a middle-distance runner in the team of the University of Oregon, and his coach Bill Bowerman. In 1940s US made sports shoes cost as little as 5 dollars, but the quality of these shoes was lacking. Bill Bowerman understood that no good sports results could be achieved with an outfit of poor quality on, but shoes of high quality of German made cost six times as much.
It was then that the coach decided to design sneakers and Phil Knight was one of those who at first hand tested the quality of the sports shoes. At that time he was studying at Stanford University to receive his MBA. Once he was assigned a task to work out an effective marketing strategy, as well as to outline a marketing plan. It was then that a new idea of establishing sports shoes manufacturing company occurred to him.
In the year 1963 Phil Knight went to Japan to conclude the contract with Onitsuka factory for the sales of high-quality Tigers sneakers in the USA. Phil Knight is said to come up with the idea to give his company Blue Ribbon Sports name right during the negotiations with the Japanese when he introduced himself as a representative of an American Blue Ribbon Sports sneakers distributor who was interested in marketing Japanese sports shoes in the USA.
Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman managed to buy only 300 pairs of Japanese sneakers. Some of them they simply took to pieces to improve their design. One year later having sold a lot of sneakers, the company Blue Ribbon Sports got 8,000 dollars’ worth of the product and placed an order with Onitsuka factory for a new lot of goods again.
Later on the company took Jeff Johnson as a sales manager on. It was he who came up with the idea to rename the company Nike, having had a dream about Nika, a Greek goddess of victory. Moreover, Jeff Johnson was the first who laid down the foundations of CRM system of the company. To be continued…
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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.
Manolo Blahnik Footwear
‘Many consider shoes to be just shoes, but if they make a woman happier at least for several minutes, they seem to mean more than mere shoes…’ says Manolo Blahnik.
Nearly 80 pairs of shoes per day are manufactured mostly manually at Manolo Blahnik’s works in Italy. The designer has always been an adherent of tradition and high quality, that’s why he works only with real masters who know their trade.
Blahnik as before is not going to switch to mass production, to manufacture more affordable footwear collections or to try to satisfy totally the demand for his shoes. A limited quantity of the manufactured shoes styles lays stress on their exclusive designs and makes the most famous fashion-conscious women burn with the desire to buy these very shoes.
The footwear designed by Manolo Blahnik is a piece of art made especially for the selected few.
And the feeling of joining the elite when buying another pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes makes this brand world-known and desired. It is anything but a secret that sometimes a woman has to forget about comfort when she has Manolo Blahnik shoes on. However, the pleasure that women take in putting on Manolo Blahnik shoes is akin to the erotic one.
In childhood Manolo was merged into the atmosphere of high fashion. His parents bought their clothes from famous fashion designers of those days. His mother was of a Spanish origin and his father was from Czechoslovakia. There were a lot of films and literature on fashion industry in their house. Manolo Blahnik’s destiny was predetermined.
In 1968 Manolo got a job at one of the boutiques in Paris. The grandiose ideas regarding his first collection were maturing in his mind. Two years later he moved to London on invitation of Zapanta store owner. This way a famous shoemaker launched his career.
But he didn’t become a celebrity at once. As late as 1973 Blahnik decided to be self-employed and set up a men footwear boutique. The first Manolo Blahnik’s collecton was a tremendous success and soon the most famous fashion houses like PERRY ELLIS, CALVIN KLEIN, JEAN MUIR, ZANDRA RHODES, YVES St. LAURENT, CHRISTIAN DIOR, RIFAT OZBEK snowed their orders on Manolo Blahnik. However, soon Mamolo realized that there were too many limitations and too little flight of imagination in designing of men footwear and he switched to women shoes design.
It sounds that Blahnik has a gift for creation footwear that becomes a cult. Everyone knows that high-heeled shoes had existed long before him, but it was he who glorified the shoes with pointed toes and 4in. high heels that are an eternal hit.
