Teach an old sneaker enough new trieks-and kids will come running

摘要

For steven nichols it was love at first sight. As the head of children's shoes at Stride Rite Corp. in the mid-1980s, Nichols was so enthralled when he first encountered a K-Swiss tennis shoe that he tried to persuade his boss to buy the company. When that didn't work, he put together a group of investors and bought it himself for $20 million in 1986. The sneaker's design was so timeless, Nichols thought, it could sell for the long term. "This is a 50-year shoe," he said. So far, so good. Sales at K-Swiss Inc. have increased more than twentyfold since Nichols stepped in. Buoyed by a trend toward retro sneakers, especially those with white stripes on white leather, K-Swiss' profits and sales have doubled, to $54 million and $465 million, respectively, over the past two years alone, helping boost the company to No. 15 on Business Week's list of the fastest-growing companies.