Warrior re-enters market fray

Volleyball player Zhou Xiaolan wore Warriors in the file photo. Photo provided to Shanghai Star

Timeline of a resilient made-in-china brand

July 1927: The company, Shanghai Warrior Shoes, was founded at 41 Tangshan Road in Shanghai by Yuan Shusen, Xue Mingsan and Yang Shaozhen.

1934: Production of Warrior shoes began.

April 1935: The Warrior brand is registered.

Oct 1956: The classic Warrior WB 565, designed specially for China's basketball players for the Olympics, starts production.

2000: Warrior's parent company goes bankrupt, and the new Shanghai Warrior Shoes Co Ltd is founded

2008: Orlando Bloom, who plays Legolas in the Lord of the Rings films, is spotted wearing a pair of Warrior shoes while filming New York, I Love You in 2008. He starts a retro classic trend for Warrior shoes

2013: Sales revenue of Warrior exceeds 600 million yuan ($96 million), triple that of 2010.

Back to the future

The 87-year-old shoe brand used to be China's only sports shoe manufacturer before the mushrooming of producers after the opening up of the economy.

Although Warrior shoes were still accessible, the stylish younger generations started turning to global brands like Nike or Adidas.

This situation is in stark contrast to the old good days of the 1960s and 1970s, when a pair of Warrior shoes cost more than 10 yuan, the equivalent of about a third of the average urbanites' monthly salary.

"It was considerably high-end, and only the best students deserved to have a pair of Warriors when they performed well in school."

"The shoes were cherished and never worn at physical education classes, which were considered too much of a wear and tear on the precious shoes," Gui Chenggang says.

To give the shoes a higher profile, all the nation's best athletes sported Warrior shoes.

Some renowned Chinese sports stars who wore Warriors included former volleyball player and coach Lang Ping, and former four-time world table tennis champ Cao Yanhua.