High on teen spirit: Leather

Adolf Dassler looked at the scraps of leather that lay in front of him. He spun his knife in one hand, a habitual trait, as he sized down the supple leather shoe that lay on his dingy workstation. It was pieced together in his mind, every shred of leather in its place, every hole sized perfectly, every lace immaculately strung. From somewhere deep in the bowels of the building he heard the loud footsteps of a heavy man. No doubt a flat sole, a size eleven, worn to bits. He hastily gathered up his tools and flung a cloth over his work. A lock turned in the door.

A soldier opened the door with no regard for who might be behind it, and drunkenly gestured towards the bed. “Geh Schlafen” he shouted. Adi, as his friends called him, reluctantly stepped away from his desk and sat on the wafer thin mattress. The soldier began to leave, and Adi gazed down and smiled to himself. A letter came from under the door with a swish. Adi immediately swept it up with his deft palms and ripped it open. It was from his brother. Rudolf hadn’t spoken to him since they left for the war. Adi believed in Nazism, Rudolf an ardent Nationalist Socialist. A fire raged somewhere within Adi, every letter serving as fuel to the tongues of flames that he hoped would never consume him. Adi’s eyes swept across the sheet of paper. The knife that his brother had left in his back on betraying the family was joined by another. He was starting his own shoe company. Adi screamed with rage, ripping the sheet of paper in two. From somewhere under the lace cloth that covered it, a shoe called out to Adi. Every night was one of toil and torture, ideas turning into dreams... dreams turning to plans... plans turning to work, and work turning into beauty. Adi’s silhouette haunted the window every night, a ghost with lean fingers, a spectre with sharp eyes. Rudolf’s brand was on the feet of every single passer by he saw. It no longer pulled his heartstrings, it simply gave him incentive.

His brand was ready. His masterpieces adorned the feet of the West German underdogs, a revolution. A football shoe with spikes at the bottom. It made the team a laughing stock. Rudolf watched East Germany laughing at their rivals as they walked awkwardly onto the pitch. Rudolf watched West Germany laughing as their rivals bowed out with no resistance. From that day onwards, Adi’s brand never left the German National Team. Today, Rudolf’s company is strong, going by the name of ‘Puma’, while  Adi Dassler left a personal mark on every Adidas shoe ever made.

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