Adi Dassler invented the Adidas brand during the 1920s; the brand name is a shortened version of its name. Adi was an avid sports fan, but also a shoemaker, and he had a vision: to invent shoes that would allow an athlete to perform at an optimal level, while protecting feet from injury by providing specialized and supportive designs. This idea is second nature to our modern sensibilities, we think of it as a given feature of sportswear that is protective and supportive, but back in its day, this was a revolutionary idea.

Adidas shoes proved immensely popular and before long Adi Dassler’s company was turning out over 100 pairs of shoes a day, quite a feat for a newly flourishing business. In the late 1930s, the Adidas brand began to expand its product range; They began by creating trainers designed specifically for certain sports. For example, they began to manufacture tennis, ice skates and golf.

When Adi Dassler started trading under the Adidas brand, he had a business partner, his brother, Rudolph. During the 1940s their visions of how the company would proceed began to diverge and they chose to go their separate ways. Adi went on to create Adidas sneakers, but his brother, Rudolph, founded a rival company: Puma. As a way to differentiate the two brands, Adi decided to add the three stripes, part of the iconic image of the Adidas brand.

During the 1950s, the Adidas brand really came into its own. By creating its first range of football boots, complete with studs, the company attracted the attention of the world’s top football leagues, which of course proved to be exceptionally lucrative. In fact, the Adidas brand designed the football boots used by the winning team in the 1954 World Cup, which took place in Switzerland. In the mid-1950s, 1956 to be precise, the Adidas brand became a partial sponsor of the Melbourne Olympics, and needless to say, nothing stopped them after that. Today, Adidas is one of the best-known brands in the world, an incredible feat for such humble beginnings. New factories sprang up regularly and the brand spread throughout the capitalist world.

However, it wasn’t until the 1960s that Adidas expanded its range and started making sportswear. In 1963 they also began to expand their merchandise to include sports equipment, if it weren’t for this move we wouldn’t see Adidas soccer balls at major soccer sporting events, an image that has truly become iconic of the ‘ beautiful game.

The 1970s saw the first ‘trefoil logo’ appear on clothing, equipment and footwear. Adidas incorporated the trefoil logo as a means for people to distinguish imitation Adidas products from the genuine article. In the 1980s, the Adidas brand became involved in the wider cultivation and celebration of sports in general, Horst Dassler founding ‘International Sports, Culture and Leisure’.

2000 saw a return to earlier Adidas clothing styles, when the first Adidas Originals stores opened in the United States and South Korea. Today, Adidas Originals is still an extremely popular fashion.