The history of the sportswear produsers Adidas and Puma

Adidas AG is a German company that manufactures athlete's clothes and equipment. The company is part of the Adidas Group, which also consists of companies Reebok, Taylor Made (golf), Salomon and Rock Port. The company was founded 18. August 1949, and are per 2,008 world's second largest manufacturer of sports.

Adidas' characteristics are three parallel stripes are apparent in most of the clothes and shoes from the company. The three stripes are also integrated in the company's logos. The company's turnover in 2005 was 6.6 billion €, and almost € 10.1 billion in 2006.


History

Adolf ( "Adi") Dassler made his first shoe pair in 1920 in his mother's kitchen. Dassler was an active athlete and wanted to make special shoes for the various exercises. He used canvas as a key material, but also silk parashute materials and leather from helmets as they did in the villages after the First World War. He became known for his light running shoes, including variants  with spikes. With support from his father, Christoph, and two of his workmates, (the brothers Zehlein), who worked in a shoe factory and  in a blacksmith shop, Adi Dassler's first skoe production was organized.


1924 - Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik

In 1924, two years later, his older brother Rudolf ( "Rudi") Dassler entered the shoe production, and they started the company Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik (The brothers Dassler's shoe factory). During the summer Olympics 1928 in Amsterdam Dassler brothers had supplied a number of practitioners with their spescial shoes. This was the foundation for the continued international growth, and they sold around 200 000 shoes in the couple of years before the Second World War. It goes with the story that Jesse Owens won his Olympic gold in Berlin, 1936 with spiked shoes from Dassler on his legs.


1948 - Family Controversies

Cooperation between the brothers was not good, and in 1948 they each went to their own. Rudi Dassler started the company Puma  and Adi Dassler started adidas.  The name was composed of the first syllable in his own name, logo and name is written without capitalization adidas. It is said that the name is an acronym for the phrase All Day I Dream About Sports, but the story is likely to come long after the creation, and seems fabricating for the U.S. market.


Sponsorships

Football-stars as kaka, Michael Ballack, Steven Gerrard and David Beckham is sponsored by Adidas. Adidas also sponsors the fotballandslaget as Germany, Argentina, Greece and the major football clubs such as Liverpool, Chelsea and AC Milan.

Adidas, among others been the equipment sponsor for the world and European championship in football since 1970.



SOME IDEAS FOR DESIGN OF YOUR OWN CLOTHES AND FOR USE OF CLOTHES OF YOUR OWN DESIGN

There are many good reasons for designing your own clothes. One reason is simply that you think clothes of a special style are beautiful, but you cannot find this style in the shops, or the clothes of that style that you find in the stores are simply not good enough. Then you can use your own fantacy and make a drawing with exactly those patterns, those colors and those figures that you like, and get the clothes made for you according to your drawings.

Do you want to look sexy, or cute and attract other persons that you are interested in? Special colour combinations and symbolic figures can waken the interest of other persons in you. You can also make clothes that attract the vision of other persons to special areas of your body that you wish them to look at.

Another reaon is that you want to show your identity, your personality, your emotional properties or your intellect for other persons. Or perhaps you want to hide some aspects of your personality and exhibit others? By showing color patterns, meaningful pictures, humoristic frases or philosophical texts on your clothes, you can give other people exactly that impression of yourself that you aim at. You can use the design of your clothes to show other people that you belong to a special group, for example a sport club, a political organisation, as special professional group or a congregation of any kind. A good idea could be to design clothes for a whole club that you can use when you come together or go out among people as a whole troop.

Do you plan an important event, for exaple an important anniversary. It could be an idea to design some special clothes that every participant wear. Do you plan to organize some play or show? Then you can design the costumes for the show youself.

Do you have some religious standpoint you want to spread, or some faith in something. You can make your standpount clear on clothes of your own design by texts, by symbols or by pictures..

Then you can construct clothes to give some kind of message to other persons. Do you have an importent political message to say to others, or some message about lifestyle you think is important, or some message about taking care of the environment, about taking care of each other, or any kind of message about trust or mistrust in something? Perhaps you want to protest against something unfair in the society, or perhaps you want to protest about something unfair happening in your own locality, your own school or your own workplace? Parhaps you want to warn people about some dangers. You can do all this with your self-designed clothes with the appropriate texts and figures.

Do you want to be funny, or be shocking for some reason? Do you have a good reason for showing your respect for something or someone, for rediculing something or someone, or showing your disgust for something? With clothes you design yourself this is fully possible.

Do you sell something, or have a business? Then you can design your own clothes to advertize your services or your products. If you own a business with several employees, you can design clothes that your whole staff can use on work or on special occations, for example in fairs or exhibitions.