Businessweek
The Era of Monster-Truck Sneakers Treats Soles as Engineering Marvel
Tread anything but lightly when you’re wearing these sneakers.
Few styles in fashion evolve as quickly as the sneaker. Originally dubbed “plimsolls” in the late 1800s—a reference to the plimsoll line of a ship’s hull—they didn’t even distinguish between the right and left foot.
After World War I, the US Rubber Co. released the first rubber-soled shoes, a precursor to the modern sneaker. (They were so quiet you could sneak up behind someone unannounced.) By the 1920s, Keds and Converse, which invented the first basketball-specific pair embraced by Chuck Taylor, were innovating the category at the same time that Adi Dassler was busy changing the shoe game with Adidas in Europe.