Brand profile: PRO-Keds
It’s always good to welcome an old friend back home, and that’s exactly how we feel at the Hip Store this week as we introduce to you PRO-Keds – the American sneaker legends who are back to win over an entire new generation.
Exactly 100 years ago, the U.S. Rubber company created Keds, a workhorse of a canvas shoe that was low on features but big on wearability. Created as a by-product of the tyre making process and viewed as purely functional pieces as opposed to the coveted menswear items we know today, Keds sneakers were made as a no-fuss sports shoe for pre-war Americans.
However, by the time 1949 came around, American athletes needed something more from their footwear – something that would give them that edge to beat their competitors, and PRO-Keds was born to answer this need. The Royal was the first style in the new PRO-Keds range, and was championed by the new breed of towering, burly basketball players looking to break the backboard of the narrative at the time that declared basketball was a game for smaller men., with basketball legend George Mikan the posterboy of both this changing in mentality for the sport, and the PRO-Keds Royal itself.
Over the next 50 years the brand became synonymous the world over for high quality, stylish, yet functional sneakers, with the double stripe to the sole becoming a sign of undeniable class.
This year, Tom Slosberg has resurrected this classic shoe from the archives, and we’re proud to stock this sneaker classic at the Hip Store. Whether you prefer Lo or Hi tops in navy, camoor white colourways, each pair of Royals by PRO-Keds feature the same woven canvas upper, rubber toe cap and textured gum rubber sole, featuring the classic dual stripe to the front and logo to the back.
Clean and timelessly cool, reacquaint yourself with PRO-Keds this spring.
View the full range of PRO-Keds at the Hip Store here.