Converse Jack Purcell Sailcloth Ox in red and navy

[cimorene]

Comments

[buddleia]

Signal flags on the soles? That's kind of amazing.

[cimorene]

They didn't stop halfway with the theme!

[laughingrat]

Those are cute!

[pineapplechild]

Those don't quite look like the normal converse cut of shoe-- are they, and I'm just too distracted by the flags? (I love the look of these shoes, but the typical converse is too narrow for me.)

[cimorene]

Converse (which is actually owned by Nike these days) owns two very famous, very old lines of rubber-bottomed shoes, the Chuck Taylor (which is the more popular of the two, dating from the 1920s), named for an American basketball player, and the Jack Purcell (designed in the 30s by a Canadian badminton player).

The original Chuck Taylors are high tops; there's also a low-topped version called the "Chuck Taylor Ox". Most specialty Converse (celebrity designs for charity, paint your own, sequin and leather and glitter versions, etc) are Chuck Taylors.


A typical Chuck Taylor Hi


A typical Chuck Taylor Ox


A typical Jack Purcell Ox

As you can see, Purcells are distinguished by an exaggerated toe bump with a contrast color window in it, among other things.