The German training shoes' mystery

-Who designed and built the German training shoes that were targeted by fashion giants including Dior Homme long before Stans Smith and Yeezy Boost?

These days, few would question the place of sneakers in the fashion world, and no matter which style you prefer, you can usually go right with a pair of sneakers that are known for adidas, Reebok, Nike -- not to mention the buzz created by celebrity collaborations like Yeezy Boost

Compared with the sneaker launched by fashion brands, adidas, Nike and other professional sports manufacturers' sneaker is not only the design of the product itself, but also the story of the sneaker itself. In general, sneakers that cost less than 1,000 yuan in base price pale in comparison to the more expensive models that carry the aura of luxury, because they represent a pop-culture-driven sense of connection.

From the success of adidas Stan Smith, we can see that in addition to Raf Simons and Phoebe Philo, who are both favored by the fashion elite and the youth culture, the shoes' rich historical background is also one of the selling points. Before it, there was a pair of Training shoes, also favored by the fashion world but neglected to be the real thing, called the German Army Training shoes (GAT).

In 1998, in Maison Martin Margiela's spring/summer 1999 Artisanal series, a pair of training shoes bought in a second-hand shop were refurbished along with the first men's line. Over the next few years, what was supposed to be an experimental move became the brand's quarterly reserve shoe collection, named 22 Replica. Replica is no Replica.

In January 2004, Dior Homme introduced a rubber-soled training shoe called B01 in its 2004 spring/summer menswear collection, and it quickly became one of the brand's signature pieces.

No matter which brand, outsiders will know that the prototype of their training shoes comes from GAT as long as they can see the hill shape on the toe and the similar shape.

The GAT was an indoor training shoes. In the 1970s and 1980s, adidas was commissioned by the German army to produce the GAT, based on a modified version of the bw-sport sneaker, which was worn by at least half a million soldiers until the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989.Because is the military products, adidas has not signed on this type of training shoes brand, but in training shoes tongue part marked with product code, year of production, production factory and the information such as size, and punching, to prevent the sides into the private, but with the fall of the Berlin wall, military personnel downsizing and other historical reason, influx of GTA folk secondhand shop.

The original provenance of GAT's design and production is difficult to verify, and it has to do with the relationship between adidas and Puma.

According to a Wall Street journal interview with the museum in June 2015, Puma is the museum's only record of GAT designers, not adidas as is commonly believed, but an adidas spokesperson confirmed that the brand did design and produce indoor training shoes at the time

So who was the original designer of GAT? Why are Puma and adidas both recognized as the design and manufacturer of GAT?

In fact, Puma did indeed make GAT for adidas before it became the designated supplier to Germany, but due to the scarcity of relevant information, how long Puma made training shoes for the German army and why it was replaced by adidas is almost a mystery.

The only thing we know is that Adolf Adi Dassler and Rudolf Dassler, the founders of rival brands adidas and Puma, are Brothers. Before they started their own businesses, the two Brothers from a small town in Germany started the Dassler Brothers Sports Shoe Company as a handmade workshop in their mother's laundry room in the 1920s.His younger brother, Adolf Adi Dassler, was calm and quiet, skilled in shoemaking and loved track and field, while his older brother, Rudolf Dassler, who was about two years older, was skilled in experience and sales.

But fate is always unpredictable, the two brothers finally go their separate ways.In 1948, Adolf Adi Dassler and Rudolf Dassler decided to divide the company's assets and employees among themselves. The former created adidas with his middle name Adi and initials, while the latter created Puma Schuhfabrik Rudolf Dassler with his full name. After independence, their condition did not improve. Even factories were built on both sides of the same river in the German town.

So what happened that turned the two brothers against each other? The common saying sounds a little ridiculous, but the so-called hero sad beauty pass, clean official difficult to stop family affairs, let their separate wives.

It is said that after the two married, they still live in the same villa, but their wives do not like each other, the deep resentment. The second world war allied bombing town, the younger brother with his family into the younger brother family advance into the shelter, brother ran for his life shouted angrily: "this group of bastards again!"

It turned out that Rudolf Dassler thought his brother was scolding his family, but the brother insisted that he was actually referring to the Allies who had bombed them.

In addition, Rudolf Dassler believed that his brother and sister-in-law had secretly planned to send him to the front lines in order to monopolize the company. Rudolf Dassler was captured in 1943 on a charge of desertion, and on his way to prison, he was captured by American forces on Nazi grounds.Rudolf Dassler blamed it all on Adolf Adi Dassler, who is said to have been proved by an investigative report produced by the United States. While Rudolf Dassler was in captivity, Adolf Adi Dassler reorganized the company and sold training shoes and other products to the American army.

It wasn't until 2009 that the two companies' employees officially ended their nearly 60-year feud with a friendly soccer game, and the brothers, adidas and Puma, were named fortune's 20th most legendary brand rivalry of all time.