Adidas

Though the Adidas brand, and the three stripes did not officially begin until the end of 1948/beginning of 1949, the company and it’s founder, Adolf “Adi” Dassler have a much deeper history of creating sneakers.

Dassler started making shoes in 1920, in his mother’s washroom, at the age of 19. Adi hand made the shoes out of leather. In 1924, he convinced his brother Rudolph to join the business, the two personalities were fitting in a yin yang kind of way. Adi was more reserved designer, while Rudolph was more of an extrovert, a salesman. They registered the business as Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory. The brothers continued creating shoes for specific sports, until 1946, when they created their first multi purpose shoe from supplies from the US Army, tent fabric, leather from baseball gloves, and a sole made from warplane fuel tanks. Rudolph and Adi decided to part ways in 1948, Rudolph went on to form Puma, while Adi created Adidas.