Cortez Basic Leather

Cortez Basic Leather

Leather Cortez 1971

The Cortez shoe truly was the life line for Blue Ribbon Sports. BRS was trying everything in order to reproduce the Cortez under their own brand. It had acquired many users under the tiger Shoes brand. Therefore, the Nike Cortez was launched through an ad copy stating that they are exactly the same as Tiger Cortez.

In fact, Nike Cortez looked very much like Tiger Cortez from its design to coloring. This incident worsened Onitsuka Tiger Shoes and BRS’s business relationship and later led to a court trial. The only main difference is the insole. Nike Cortez uses a sole made by the manufacturer Spenco and this insole that resembles a wet suit is smooth to the touch. The wearer can easily slide the foot into the shoe and it provides comfort. For the coming decade and onwards, many Nike shoes came to utilize the Spenco insole.

The first Leather Cortez was made in Taiwan as a sample and the quality was not satisfactory. Nowadays, Taiwan is the core of the shoe production industry but at that time, there were still big technological gaps in comparison to Japan or the U.S. However, Production also started in Japan the following year and product quality improved. People were able to buy the new Cortez, which was as good as the Tiger Cortez.