Onitsuka Tiger

Kihachiro Onitsuka, a former army officer, founded his sports-shoe company in Kobe in 1949, hoping that sport would give Japan's post-war young people a sense of purpose, and named its shoes Tiger for strength and agility. The Tiger stripes first appeared on the Mexico 66, introduced two years before the Mexico City Olympics. The company merged into ASICS in 1977, and ASICS revived Onitsuka Tiger as a fashion brand in 2002.