Converse is determined to regain its prime position in the basketball market.
In an event in Brooklyn on Wednesday afternoon, the brand unveiled the All Star Pro BB, a performance basketball shoe that is intended to highlight the company’s return to the sport it helped pioneer more than a century ago.
In 1917, Converse introduced the Non-Skid, the first athletic sneaker specifically engineered for basketball, a new sport that was starting to gain traction in the United States. In 1922, a basketball player who joined Converse as a salesman would host the first basketball clinic in North Carolina. His name was Chuck Taylor.
The Converse All Star sneaker — a later iteration of the Non-Skid — soon became synonymous with the sport. Taylor’s name was added to the model in 1934.
Since that time, the Chuck Taylor, as it is now known, has become a signature of the street and skate communities. It remains the brand’s biggest selling footwear model.
Converse, which is owned by Nike, used the Chuck Taylor’s signature features — minimal construction and performance details such as toe bumpers, ankle patches and peg top uppers — to inform the All Star Pro BB.
The shoe was developed by Converse’s design team along with
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