Hush Puppies are one of the most recognizable and popular brands of shoes available on the market these days. While they are known as a distinctly American style and brand of shoe, they are widely worn around the whole world. The brand is so popular that there are many Hush Puppy products that aren_t even shoes- including soft Basset Hound toys and even eyeglass frames! The brand exist under the larger Wolverine Worldwidepany, which licenses out the Hush Puppy brand to distributors in well over 100 countries around the world. But like many popular brands out there, Hush Puppies started out with slightly less glamorous origins.
What Does Hush Puppy Mean?
Perhaps it_s best to start with where the name of these shoes came from. The name _hush puppy_ was actually first given to a type of food traditionally made in the Southern US. In the South, a Hush Puppy is a popular kind of breaded and fried cornball. They got their name anecdotally, because Southerners would throw them to their dogs to keep them chewing and to keep them from barking to much. Thus, they were literally used to hush puppies.
This was told to the first sales manager of the Hush Puppies shoe bran, James Muir, who was enjoying a plate of them while traveling through the South on a sales visit. He asked about their name, and made the quick association in his head. After all, it_s a prettymon colloquialism in some parts of the country to say your _dogs are barking_ when your feet hurt. Muir put two and two together, and decided that these new shoes of his were so incredibly comfortable that they could keep your _dogs from barking._ In other words, they were Hush Puppies.
Casual but Functional
The shoes themselves were developed by Wolverine when thepany was looking for a way to make the tanning of pigskins a little more feasible for the mass market after WWII. Pigskin had been used extensively by the US army do to its extreme durability, and they felt that there was going to be a huge market for more casual pigskin shoes after the war due to the huge rise in suburban consumers. The shoes were a big hit from the beginning, and have been a staple of American casual wear since the late 1950_s.
Beating Trends
Interestingly enough, the brand has seen some big highs and lows in the course of its long history. One of the most fascinating examples of how fashion can literally change overnight is the way that the Hush Puppy brand went from years of declining sales to record breaking quarters in the matter of just a couple of years. In the 1990_s the brand was floundering, until they spontaneously became popular among young New York City Hipsters. The trend caught on across the country, and within two years the brand saw a jump in sales of over 50 times their recent low!
Hush Puppies are a truly classic American shoe, and are likely to continue to stand the test of time.
profile/John-Brasinger/386214>John Brasinger