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The Puma History
The roots of Puma brand stretch back to the mid 1920's when Adi and Rudolph Dassler registered their family shoe enterprise in Herzogenaurach, Germany. After World War II, the brothers began a legendary feud, causing Rudolph to leave the company and found a rival company across town. Rudi Dassler named his company Puma Aktiengesell-schaft Rudolf Sport (Puma) while brother Adi incorporated as Adidas.
In 1948, Puma released their first shoe, the PUMA Atom to the market and to the West German football team. Not long after, athletes started wearing Puma’s at international events. In 1952 runner Josef Barthel wore Puma while he won a Olympic Gold Medal in the 1500 m. In 1956, the formstripe was introduced and since then, has been a Puma trademark. This would begin the intense battle between Puma and Adidas to get their shoes onto the feet of world-class athletes that would span the next several decades.
The intense race to market new technologies spawned copyright and infringement lawsuits until 1960 when Puma, behind in sales, paid West German track star Armin Hary to defect from Adidas and wear Puma shoes. In 1962 Pele becomes the World Cup champion for a second time while wearing Puma shoes. 1968, the Puma leaping cat logo was launched. That same year a controversial event took place: Tommie Smith, who won the Olympic Gold 200 m in Mexico was wearing a pair of Puma running shoes. He then took stand barefoot with the Pumas by his side. At this time, team mate John Carlos and Tommie Smith made the Black Power salute, to point to the mistreatment of African Americans at the moment. Smith then left his pair of Pumas for the world to see.
Other professional athletes to wear Puma were Diego Maradona and tennis superstar Boris Becker. One of the most popular models is the Puma Clyde, which is a basketball shoe designed by Walter „Clyde“ Frazier in 1968. Some collaborations Puma has done with MTV, which released recently. Two color ways were made of the Puma Clyde’s, the Pink Yo MTV Raps were available to the public but limited. A green color way was also made, but were limited and hard to get your hands on.
With the popularization of urban styles, reissued versions remain highly in demand such as the Puma Suede, Puma Basket, and Puma Clyde originally launched in the 1980's. The company has also been successful in expanding into niche markets like yoga and motor sports shoes, apparel and accessories and the brand continues to dominate on the world soccer stage because of its stylish cutting edge designs and dedication to change and innovation.
Some of these are the S.P.A. technology (introduced in 1976), the Duoflex sole (invented in 1982), the "Trinomic" sport shoe system (launched in 1989) the PUMA disc system (designed in 1991), the "Cell" which is said to be the first foam free midsole (1996).
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