Ask for It by Name!

Adi Dassler pretty much invented the modern sports shoe. As a 20 year-old track enthusiast in Germany, Dassler made his first shoe, a canvas training shoe for runners, in 1920. Over the next two decades, Dassler expanded his line, and by 1937 was producing 30 models of shoes for eleven different sports. Early on, Dassler made a point of soliciting the opinions of the athletes themselves and being personally present at the sporting events in which competitors wore his shoes.

After the interruption of World War II, Dassler restarted his company and decided to register the trademark “Adidas,” a melding of the first syllables of his own first and last names. In 1949, he registered the company’s famous three-stripes design as a trademark. By the 1960s, Adidas dominated the professional sports shoe market and began manufacturing athletic equipment and Adidas logo clothing as well.

In Ancient Greek mythology, Hermes was a god, the son of Zeus and Maia. Hermes was the messenger of the gods, known for his inventiveness, and also the god of both merchants and thieves. Hermes is usually represented wearing winged sandals and carrying a staff entwined with serpents. (If Hermes sounds familiar, it’s because the Romans later called him Mercury.)

In 1828 an inventive modern Hermes arrived in Paris from his native Germany. Thierry Hermes first went into business making saddles and harnesses, and within a few years became known for the high quality of his products. As the Hermes enterprise expanded under Thierry’s descendants and added European royalty to its clientele, leather garments and luggage were added, and in 1928 Hermes began buying silk scarves to sell along with their clothing line. The scarves were so popular that Hermes decided to design their own, and today Hermes scarves are probably the firm’s most famous product. But the firm also still produces around 400 hand-tooled saddles every year.