so I thought German Army Trainer was a style of shoe
But people seem to be talking about it like it’s a model. Can someone provide me some clarity?
41 Replies
It’s a model
It's a style of shoe, but several brands (e.g. margiela, recently Universal Surplus) have GAT models and they usually call them GATs
though that's sort of splitting hairs
The original german army trainers were mass produced for the german military in the 30s?
When people say “true gats” they mean vintage milsurp ones
And then popularized for casual wear by various shoe companies
Bundeswehr or however it’s spelled
o damn I thought they were from like the 70s
But yeah there’s lots of reproductions
Originally made by the future founder of adidas and another guy I believe
Maybe the founder of puma I can’t remember
Source? Everywhere else says they're a Bundeswehr (postwar) shoe from the 70s
I mean I'd imagine if they were from the 30s there'd be reason for that not to be widely discussed 😬
Beckett Simonon
What is the German Army Trainer?
The German Army Trainer (GAT) became popular when it entered the general fashion sphere in the early 1990s. But, the origin of this iconic style is often misunderstood. Read on to discover the real story...
First version was designed for Jesse owens according to this
That was 40 years before they actually produced the shoe for mass market though
So yeah 70s and 30s both sort of right
70s more relevant to the conversation
30s just interesting tidbit
These are the shoes in question
Seems like a different shoe by the same company
(Not even the same company)
Same guy
But pre brother split into adidas and puma
medieval torture device shoes
Well precursor company ig
My source was a vague memory of something I thought I read once so it makes sense that it's not accurate
Me with everything
FWIW can confirm it's spelled Bundeswehr, which is german for "German Army"
I thought it meant Federal Army
So calling them the Bundeswehr German Army trainers is just calling them german army german army trainers
And if you ever want to buy GATs from Germany search for "Bundeswehr Turnschuhe" (which is german for GATs)
It does, literally. But the german's never refer to their army as german army so whoever came up with the term "german army trainer" ignored that anyway
I mean saying "the army" in the language/nation of that army usually means the army of that nation
It translates the connotation to a different cultural context
Yeah very true. I guess in german "bundes" distinguishes the federal army from the theoretical Landwehr (which would be something like a state army for the friends across the pond), which doesn't have great historical connotations I think (but I'm not from the german speaking area so I might be wrong)
Also recalls the Bundesrepublik vs all the other German states and their respective armies
Indeed, I guess we could be talking about Prussian Army Trainers (PATs) here
"Hallensportschuh" if you want to be extra specific
cause there's other German army trainers that dont look as cool
"the paint splatter shoes"
If you translated it directly it means federal defense
I do not think that sneakers are that old
I was wondering was the GAT the shoe that popularized grey suede tips on sneakers as seen on sambas or mexico 66s
Sambas are like a direct descendent
So probably
Just looked it up and sambas are from 49
Well then I guess they’re a direct ancestor
I got curious so I tried to look up pictures of the original samba's and found this: https://www.gqindia.com/galleries/adidas-samba
Seems like the samba's only got the suede tips in the same way as GATs later, also around the 70s
Interesting it's cool how old some of these designs are
Yeah totally, also cool to see the evolution of a design
timeless
This has been very illuminating, thank you all!
Bundeswehr or bust
TIL Adidas actually makes a model called ‘Army’. Full circle.
Huh, interesting. Never saw those for sale anywhere before