Journey of an Icon: The History of the Chuck Taylor All Star

The sneaker was first marketed to the area’s coaches, who provided Converse with constructive feedback, including noting that they’d prefer a darker canvas upper because the light tan hue revealed too many scuffs and dings. In response, the company created a dark brown version of the Non-Skid, featuring black trim up the eye row. The iteration was officially branded the “All Star” in 1919, kicking off a new round of basketball-specific innovations that came to characterize the silhouette as the leading performance basketball shoe of the next half-century.

As for the shoe’s namesake, Chuck Taylor (aka Charles Hollis Taylor), he arrived a few years later.

True to its name, the Chuck Taylor All Stars was worn by basically every top basketball player pre-1965. These athletes included players competing on the world’s biggest stage in 1936, when Converse equipped the U.S. men’s basketball team with white Chucks featuring red and blue stripes on their foxing tape. The custom version was such a hit that competing teams adopted it, and the colorway was permanently added to the product line. In 1939, America’s first national college basketball championship featured players in Chucks. In 1962, basketball’s professional single-game scoring record of 100 points was made in Chucks. In 1971, Chucks debuted in team colors, allowing teams to match their uniforms to their shoes for the first time. Chucks was basketball, and basketball was Chucks.

As it turns out, the performance innovations that made the Chuck a great basketball design also made it a great skateboarding shoe.

Skateboarding debuted in mid-century California as “sidewalk surfing,” a pastime for when the waves were flat. The low-top Chuck, which came out in 1957, was already a favorite of these “beach boys” and perfectly adapted to the new street sport, thanks to its underfoot cushioning, grippy rubber and form-fitting canvas upper.

Over 50 years later, the Chuck retains its foundational status in skate and with its top athletes — even as the sport has moved from the street to the world’s premier competitions and into its leading museums. In 2023, the Design Museum in London hosted “Skateboard,” the exhibition arm of a multimedia project that also included a book created in collaboration with curator Jonathan Olivares, Converse and Phaidon, chronicling the countercultural design history of skateboarding.

The Chuck’s simple, no-frills style also reflects skate’s democratic, live-on-your-own-terms DNA — which has taken it everywhere.

Tyler, the Creator says it well: “I’m from LA, and I grew up with skateboarders. [The Chuck Taylor] is a very staple shoe in that lifestyle.” The Chuck bridged skate and music in the ’90s and early aughts, but the shoe’s musical roots stretch back to artists topping billboard charts in the ’50 and ’60s. These global stars wore the silhouette everywhere: on stages from California to England, crossing Penny Lane, traversing the beaches of Hawthorne, and strolling the streets of Haight-Ashbury.

Over the decades, the Chuck has collected a roster of musical artists that rivals a legacy record label’s list and spans all genres, from punk, alternative and grunge to hip-hop, indie rock and pop. It has also cemented its place in recording studios, on album covers and at global music festivals, even infiltrating classical music halls. In 2018, when the conductor Jonathon Heyward forgot his formal shoes for an orchestra performance, he wore his red Chucks onstage, nearly upstaging the concert. “Being able to find a sense of relatability within classical music is something that I am really passionate about, and Chuck Taylors are incredible barrier breakers,” explains Heyward, who is also Music Director at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. “By simply wearing a pair of Chuck Taylors to my concert, I become more relatable — and people’s openness becomes greater when there is that sense of relatability. The walls go down and I can take them on a journey, which is what classical music is and what a live classical music performance is about.”

As a cultural bellwether of mid-century America, the Chuck couldn’t ignore color. First introduced for basketball-centric reasons, the rainbow of hues also made a statement by breaking down color barriers on court and off, celebrating diversity and championing self-expression in all forums.

From primary tones came endless prints and motifs, with the ’80s debuting camouflage and animal and glitter treatments along with checkerboard, strike and glow-in-the-dark patterns. New materials, heights and shapes followed, evolving the Chuck from a signifier of specific subcultures to a customizable badge for those independent enough not to follow — and for an ever-evolving roster of collaborators.

It all began in 1934 with Disney, Converse’s first brand partnership, which defined Chucks as the first shoes to feature Mickey Mouse. Despite this high-profile launch, it wasn’t until the late aughts that collaboration became a central element of the Chuck. The 2008 Converse 1HUND(RED) Artists collection commissioned 100 global musicians, graphic designers and graffiti artists to use the Chuck as a canvas on which to express their support of the fight against AIDS, empowering community for a cause and unleashing a dam of creativity. The stream of joint creations has remained steady, including signature contributions from the brand’s longest-standing collaborator, Comme des Garçons (CDG) PLAY.

The instant, persistent popularity of the Converse x PLAY Comme des Garçons partnership confirmed what had been apparent for decades: The Chuck effortlessly resides in high-fashion spheres, whose leading visionaries grew up with the shoe, influenced by its anti-conformist ethos and customizable style. As fashion designer Rick Owens put it, “When I think of Converse, I think of the black and white Chuck Taylors and the punk rock generation. These have always been iconic pillars of my aesthetic.”

As the aughts wore on and digital media democratized access to the fashion world, the Chuck cemented its status in this once-rarefied yet open-minded world. It graced runways in both original and bespoke forms at the same time as it populated the pages of glossies and appeared in street-style snaps from global fashion weeks.

Deeply entwined in the fabric of global culture, the Chuck has likewise witnessed myriad historical moments, adorned the feet of diverse history-makers, and embedded itself into the greater societal landscape.

As its endless iterations prove, the Chuck could likely claim the title of the most customized sneaker in history. It has been splatter-painted and Sharpied; adorned with badges, pins and spikes; embroidered and cross-stitched; inverted. Like a fingerprint, each expression reflects its creator’s unique creativity. As confirmed by Converse All Star Rocco Montagnoli Bruzzone. “Chucks have helped me express myself and my individuality since I was a child, when I used to sketch on them. Now, I wear a clean pair of Chucks to my meetings.”

Recognizing the powerful relationship a one-of-a-kind Chuck fosters with its wearer, the brand introduced limited-edition offerings as far back as 1988, via mail-order catalog. Next came hyper-local Chuck collections, such as Lunar New Year and City Packs. Often made in collaboration with local creators, these city-exclusive designs weave the distinct cultural weft of their locale into the Chuck’s signature form. In 2015, Converse further evolved its personalization platform with the introduction of Converse By You, a digital design program that reached new heights with the record-breaking 2024 Converse By You x Billie Eilish collaboration — all in an effort to bring creators closer to their Chucks.

And that’s just the first century.