John Edward ‘Jack’ Purcell was a Canadian badminton player who found success in the amateur circuit in the period between wars. The amateur sport was considered as an activity for gentlemen, whilst the professional version was associated with small circuits in which tradition and elegance lost weight to its spectacularity. Two separate worlds, one that was respected, for amateurs, and the other, almost seen as a circus, for professional players. The line between the amateur and the professional sport could not be moved; any kind of financial compensation related to any physical activity could mean disqualification when it came to competing in amateur tournaments, the most prestigious ones.
JACK PURCELL, THE MAN WITH THE SMILE
There are names that become brands, and sometimes we end up forgetting the lives of those people who once gave them up. That is the case of Levi Strauss, a businessman who lost his surname when he started manufacturing jeans, opposite to the case of Marquis Mills Converse, a name forgotten after his sneaker brand. Precisely one of Converse’s models is another example of a product that ended up absorbing the life of its creator.
Those who weren’t allowed to participate in amateur competitions were physical education teachers, sportsmen who had earned money through other sports (like Jim Thorpe’s Olympic case) or athletes that had too close of a relationship with brands. Jack Purcell was one of the sanctioned ones, but his case was even more curious than that: he earned money by writing a column about badminton for a Canadian newspaper.
Obliged to become a professional, Jack Person saw a way to become associated with brands. He advertised Bromo-Sletzer, a brand of pain-killers, but above all, he accepted the proposition to lend his name to a pair of sneakers. In the beginning, BF Goodrich manufactured tires, even though soon enough they saw that they could use that experience to make sneakers with vulcanised soles. The final result, created from Jack Purcell’s indications, meant that they were breathable, with great cushioning (for 1935) and above all they were known for a toe that seemed to smile, a true sign of its identity.
Even though they were somewhat successful as a badminton sneaker, soon they started being used in tennis tournaments. Jack Purcell’s fame took him to train Hollywood stars that adopted his sneaker as a sign of their style inside and outside the courts. From there, the explosion came when they became a classic outside the courts and on the feet of the likes of George Harrison, Woody Allen, James Dean or Steve McQueen. In the seventies, BF Goodrich decided to focus on tires and sold its footwear section to Converse, that made sure to recover the original Jack Purcell.
From then on, they’ve kept a basic silhouette that has been able to be reinterpreted by such different names like Margiela, A$AP NAST, TakahiroMiyashitaTheSoloist or Mo’Wax. Strange ways of honouring the legacy of an almost unknown badminton player that has made history with a smile.
