Series of Short Stories about Great People: Adi Dassler. Original illustration.
It’s the autumn of 1920. In the Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach, it’s either still a day, or an evening already. Sunlight almost doesn’t pass through the blind dusty windows of our home workshop even on the lightest day. And it’s overcast today. The rubber adhesive stinks. In this poisonous half-light, one can take us to be a clock-work. We are working during the whole long boring gray day. We includes me, my brother, father, mother, and sisters. We make house shoes. The shoe soles are made of the car tires, while the upper part of the shoe is made of the old military uniform. Now, there is so much of this stuff everywhere. The product is ugly. But it perfectly fits into the German depressive way of life in the early 1920s.
Rudy, my brother, says we picked up on the post-war trend. He is kidding as always. However, if it were not for him, our shoe making business would have snuffed out long ago. On Sundays, Rudy sells our products. To do this, he has everything. Thus, he is a smiling, sociable, and handsome man without any complexes. Besides, female customers like him. He has his own theory telling that the seller should be friendly, assertive, and always a bit hysterical. Only in this case, you can sell anything, even our house shoes.
I don’t know what about friendliness and hysterical approach. But as for assertiveness, Rudy trains it with the help of boxing in the time free from work in the workshop and on the market. He hits a punching bag or leaps around in the boxing ring. And after this, he dances with the girls at the parties. No, it’s not for me. I sit in the barn till late at night. I have one idea. I want to transform my bicycle into the machine for cutting fabric for house shoes. Don’t laugh, I'm serious. I just want to have a little more time for... well, for my hobby. Which one? Well, it is a sport. Which one? Of course, it’s football.
Oh, I wish I had real football boots… Never mind. You’ll see. I’ll create football boots such that the whole world would gasp. But now, pass, pass... Here, not discouraging sneakers are needed, but progressive sports shoes. This is our future. I'll do it! And then we’ll see who is more important for the family – me or my wonderful brother Rudy. Goal!!!
The world gasped. And it still continues gasping. At all possible championships and at the Olympic games, a countless number of the wins and records is now firmly associated in your mind with the football shoes, sneakers, T-shirts, and soccer balls which have the name consisting of the first sounds of my name and surname and three stripes. By the way, those three strips have once interposed a gulf between me and Rudy. The time has come when we divided the family business. I founded my company, and he established his own one. He called it Puma. He has always been springy and predatory. On the market, we competed rigorously, not friendly, but with assertiveness. And sometimes, even with some hysterical approach. Perhaps, it’s because the question of who was the best, me or Rudy, has been haunting our mind from our early youth upwards.
Adi Dassler is a German sports shoe designer, the entrepreneur, and the founder of the Adidas company.
Awesome sauce. Great vector illustrations, I really like the colors.
Thanks!