ASICS

Kihachiro Onitsuka set up his shoe company in Kobe in 1949, and by 1953 its Tiger mark was on a marathon tabi. In 1966 an internal design competition produced the crossing stripes of the Mexico line, aimed at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, and a version of them still runs down the side of most ASICS runners. Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman started out importing those Tigers before the partnership ended in court. The ASICS name came in 1977, when Onitsuka merged with GTO and JELENK, and it stands for anima sana in corpore sano, a sound mind in a sound body. Our coverage follows the archive's second life. In 2002 the company revived Onitsuka Tiger as a fashion label and reissued the Mexico 66, which Kill Bill put on screen a year later. In 2007 Ronnie Fieg, then a buyer at his uncle's New York shop David Z, reworked the Gel-Lyte III, a project that turned him into a designer. The Gel-Kayano 14, a 2008 stability runner drawn by Hidenori Yamashita, returned in December 2020 after Kiko Kostadinov argued for it over the 13, and JJJJound and Kith both took turns. The silver and gold reissue is still the pair to own.