Puma Backcourt Mid 'White Black Red'
Colorway: White/Black/High Risk Red/Silver · Style code: 374139-01 · Price: $89 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Puma Backcourt Mid 'Black Red' (374139-03)
Puma exists because two brothers stopped speaking. Rudolf and Adolf Dassler had run a shoe factory together in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, from July 1924, making athletic footwear good enough to reach the Olympics. Relations broke down in the second half of the 1940s and the business was divided: Rudolf crossed the Aurach river and set up on the other bank, first under the name Ruda, then as Puma. Adolf kept the original site and built adidas out of his nickname and surname. The town spent decades split between two payrolls, and the rivalry has been described as bitter from the start.
Puma's early wins came in football, with a screw-in-stud boot developed alongside the West German national coach Sepp Herberger, and later in track and in the Suede. Basketball was never the center of the business, which is part of what makes a model like this one worth a second look: a plain leather mid-top, cup-soled, with the Formstrip doing all of the branding and nothing else asking for attention.