Reebok
Reebok's UK-based ancestors founded the company for one simple reason…to help athletes run faster.
In the 1890s Joseph William Foster made some of the first-ever track running spikes, and five years later was in business crafting specialised running shoes by hand for the top athletes of the day.
The family-owned company was responsible for making the running shoes for the 1924 Summer Olympics, immortalised in the film ‘Chariots of Fire.’
Reebok’s ancestry dates back nearly 125 years…and today its 19th century legacy lives on.
Founder Joseph William Foster started it all with some of the first ever spiked running shoes, and – keeping the tradition in the family – two of his grandsons launched a companion company in 1958 named after an African gazelle known, fittingly, for its grace and speed.
Thirty years later, Reebok attended an international trade show, where a distributor negotiated for the North American rights to sell their shoes across the country. At $60 a pair, they were the most expensive running shoes on the market.
Within two years sales had exceeded $1.5 million – and when the first ever athletic footwear designed specifically for women arrived in the shape of an aerobic dance shoe, the entire industry was transformed.