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"FacebookPinterest\n\nEvery Thursday we dig into the pages of vintage GQs to dust off the styles, stories, and crazy ads of the past\n\nLeafing through the March 1987 issue of GQ, it's hard not to think that 80's fashion was a grotesque ercise in sartorial parody. Acid washed, neon, flared, these are not words that conjure images of elegance and style. This was an era after all when \"parachute\" was considered a perfectly justifiable description for an article of clothing. But as is evidenced by this story titled \"Bound for Glory,\" not everything was horrible. Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars were a staple of 80's fashion, just as they are today, and this short piece by Roger House provides an interesting retrospective on an iconic shoe that has now been around for over 100 years.\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nBack in 87, the Converse All Star was a spry 79-years-old and, according to House, had sold somewhere between 250 million and 500 million pairs. In 1986 alone Converse sold 8 million pairs. It's comforting to know that a single style of shoe has connected so many people throughout history. \"To my boyhood friends and me in the early 1970's,\" House writes, \"All Stars symbolized the ultimate in cool and daring footwear.\" And while they had become more of a lifestyle shoe by 1987, there was still one NBA player who wore them, Michael Ray Richardson of the New Jersey Nets.\n\nToday of course Chucks are as popular as ever. Though Nike, who bought Converse in 2003 for $305 million, doesn't release sales figures, estimates are that the shoe has sold over one billion pairs since the All Star was introduced in 1916. And Converse expert Hal Peterson, who wrote a book called Chucks!: The Phenomenon of Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars, claims that over 60 percent of Americans own or have owned a pair of the iconic shoe.\n\nThe key to their enduring popularity is their simplicity\u2014just canvas and rubber. One look at the Calvin Klein ad next to the 1987 article and it's easy to see why keeping things simple is a sound option. I mean, nice denim jacket but otherwise, yeesh. With the no nonsense style of this 100-year-old basketball shoe however, it's no wonder that they get the GQ nod today as well as in 1987. Wilt Chamberlain may have once worn them on the basketball court, but now they're worn with suits by guys like Donnie Madia, or on the red carpet by celebs like Kristen Stewart, and the rumor is that they won't even let you into Brooklyn anymore if you don't own a pair. Here's to another century of the Converse Chuck Taylor All Star."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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