TiszaShoes' photostream

From 1971 Tisza produced sports shoes for Adidas and in 1976 the company's products even appeared on the English market and the first American export deal was struck. However the hoped international breakthrough was never realized in the overall economic downturn of the 1980s. In the early 1990s when Adidas was losing money all over Europe, their only shop to remain highly profitable was the freshly opened one in Budapest where people stood in line in front of the shop to gain admission to the world of previously unavailable Western consumer goods. Not surprisingly the Tisza factory killed its shoe product line in 1990 due to this emerging competition on the market.
It took 13 years and a sneaker freak entrepreneaur called Laszlo Vidak to reanimate the classic Tisza sneakers: using the old cuts and shapes and high quality genuine materials instead of the artificial leather of the Communist days he started with a limited run of 200 pairs in 2003. His idea seemed to resonate with the retro consciousness of Hungarian street culture and the cool seeking foreign tourists. The Tisza shop is now the Mecca of the sneaker pilgrims in Budapest, where classic T models are dressed in new colors every season and hot limited edition pairs lurk under the counter, waiting for someone to give them a rub.
www.tiszacipo.hu