By the way, do you know that the Palladium borrowed the design from the legendary French Pataugas army sneakers from the WW2?
By order of the French Intendance (Quartermaster Service) in the Far East (l'Intendance en Extrême Orient), in the early 1950s, the first model of canvas boots with rubber soles for use in hot climates ("Chaussures de brousse", literally "boots for bush"). These early boots were dark olive green in color, their structural seams were covered with stitched black cotton ribbons, black cotton laces were threaded into aluminum eyelets, and the black rubber sole was relatively thin and smelly, spreading a strong rubber smell around. The upper structure of the boot is reinforced with metal rivets at the base of the lacing system.This early model was further used at the beginning of the war in Algeria.
By 1952, there were several modifications of these boots, and they were produced both by military industry plants and by private manufacturers (contractors of the French Ministry of Defense). The main requirement was the ability to meet the requirements for materials and quality established by the military terms of reference.
French canvas boots with rubber soles received the original name "Pataugas". The term is derived from the French phrase "Pat au gas" (namely "pâte au gaz", i.e. "treatment of rubber with gas"), which in turn gave the name to the company that first developed the manufacturing process for this type of footwear. The rubber-soled canvas boots "Pataugas" were created on August 24, 1950 by René Elissabid, a French inventor of Basque origin, whose name can be translated from Basque as "the way to the church" ("le chemin de l'église" in French).
He lived in the small town of Moleón Sul, the capital of the smallest of the seven Basque provinces, located at the foot of the Pyrenees. There, under really improvised conditions, he conducted his experiments by heating rubber paste on a gas stove to combine it with the canvas tops of light boots. The idea for such shoes came to Rene back in the 1930s, when in a small village somewhere in the Roncal valley, he saw Spanish children making a semblance of traditional local abarcas boots from old car tires fastened to their feet with ropes. These scenes are not uncommon in Spain, which was devastated after the Civil War in the second half of the 1930s. At that time, he created and improved the technology of rubber processing and called it "Girodier", as a result of which he managed to create shoes like "Règum", a simplified prototype of future "patogasses" - simpler canvas boots with rubber soles, and he put the markings with his initials - "PE" + "gum" (sole material).
Rene returned to the idea of light canvas boots with rubber soles after the war, in 1948, when he returned from a trip to the United States. He has thought of the details of some lightweight yet durable boots suitable for heavy use in the field. During the first two years, the earliest prototype models of the Pataugi were produced, which are widely known today throughout the world. An interesting fact: "Pataugex" and "Patagom", early trial versions of the name "Pataugas" did not survive and were rejected, so almost no one remembers them today. René came up with a rather witty slogan for these early Pataugui models: "Je n'évite pas les flaques. Je les cherry! "(fr. "I never go around puddles, I'm looking for them!"). The success was immediate and impressive! If in 1949 only 10 workers worked at Rene's factory, by the mid-1950s the number of workers had increased 40 times!
And the factory has proven its ability to fulfill orders on time, especially for the French armed forces, which have signed a contract to supply shoes for French soldiers and legionnaires sent to Indochina and Algeria. The advantages and convenience of pataug were quickly appreciated by potential consumers, and these boots became the favorite footwear of several generations of warriors and tourists. These signature boots were among the few used in the 1950s and 1960s by the Algerian FLN guerrillas.
I've been Converse fan for decades (always lots of pairs of different colors but I always put in an orthopedic insole to make these shoes comfortable to walk on).
However, I recently bought a local replica Pataugas (closer Palladium version). These are incredible sneakers for walking through the forest and fields with my dogs.