“Why do professional skateboarders love this pair of shoes? How did Converse Cons become popular on the streets?”

Did you know? The most popular skateboarding shoes now may not be the Converse you remember.

Ten years ago, if you saw someone wearing Converse to skateboard, the old guns might laugh at him for “not knowing the business” – after all, the classic All Star is a basketball shoe, the canvas upper is as thin as paper, and the sole is hard enough to hurt your feet. But today, walk into any skate park, you can see professional skateboarders wearing the Cons series doing all kinds of difficult moves.

What did Converse do to make the skateboarding circle go from dislike to love?

1. 2009: Converse’s “skateboard awakening” moment

Before 2009, Converse’s presence in the skateboarding circle was almost zero. The kings at the time were Vans and DC, and their thick tongues and reinforced toe designs were the standard for skateboarders.

But Converse found an opportunity:

The global skateboard population has exceeded 12 million

Young consumers are beginning to regard skateboard shoes as a fashion item

Their classic shoe style has actually been DIY-modified in the underground skateboarding circle

So the Cons series was born, with a cool slogan: “Originality Never Dies”. This is not simply changing the color of the All Star, but a professional shoe redesigned specifically for skateboarding.

2. Three “black technologies” that make skaters shut up

① Star-arrow outsole: anti-slip is no joke

The soles of ordinary Converse shoes are like butter touching a hot pan when they encounter skateboard sandpaper. The “Star-arrow” shading design of the Cons series directly increases the friction coefficient by 23%, and the feet are as stable as glued to the board when doing Ollie.

② Super wear-resistant rubber: toe cap that will not wear out

The biggest headache for skaters is that the toe cap wears out in two weeks. The Duracap rubber used in Cons is as hard as the sidewall of a tire. Professional skateboarder Ryan Sheckler said: “I used to wear out two pairs of shoes a month, but now I can wear one pair for half a year.”

③ Secretly using Nike’s technology

The 2016 One Star Pro used Nike’s Lunarlon cushioning technology for the first time, and the foot feel was directly upgraded from “stepping on stone slabs” to “stepping on sponges”, but the appearance is still the classic Converse look – this move is really smart.

3. The most ruthless move: let professional skateboarders design

Converse did one thing right: not looking for celebrities to endorse, but looking for real skateboarders to co-create. For example:

Elijah Berle’s signature model directly added a “safety belt” to the high-top shoes to solve the problem of ankle flexibility

Collect feedback from 200+ professional skateboarders around the world every quarter, and even the position of the shoelace holes has to be changed for more than a dozen versions

The result? Now in professional competitions around the world, one out of every five skateboarders wears Cons. Really “voting with their feet”.

4. How did it become popular on the streets?

Professional performance alone is not enough. The Cons series can break through the circle by relying on these three steps:

① Brand co-branding

The old-fashioned style released with Stüssy has a 300% premium in the secondary market; the workwear style co-branded with Carhartt WIP is even snatched by trendy people who don’t skateboard.

② Art fusion

The Van Gogh “Starry Night” series, which cooperated with the MoMA Museum, sold skateboard shoes into the museum store-this operation directly opened up the female market.

③ Short video promotion

The #ConverseCons topic on TikTok has been played 2 billion times. Many girls buy it not for skateboarding, but for taking photos with wide-leg pants.

5. Current problem: Too popular is also a kind of trouble

As the Cons series becomes more and more mainstream, some old skaters begin to complain: “Cons now look more and more like fashion items.” Indeed, the price of the latest model is close to 1,000 yuan, which is a bit far from the street style of the year.

But in any case, Converse has proved one thing with the Cons series: as long as professional sports are respected, old brands can also find their place in the new era. Just like the owner of a skate shop in Los Angeles said: “Ten years ago, we didn’t have Converse on our shelves. Now? If we don’t stock them, customers will scold us.”

(After reading this, will you consider Cons for your next pair of skateboard shoes? Let me know in the comments)

Little Easter egg: Want to know how to distinguish between real and fake skateboarders? Look at his Cons shoes – the toes of real skateboarders always have scuff marks, while the shoes of hipsters are as clean as if they just came out of the counter.