Bally Shoe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Bally Shoe company was founded as "Bally & Co" in 1851 by Carl Franz Bally (1821-1899) and his brother Fritz in the basement of their family home in Schönenwerd in the Canton of Solothurn, Switzerland. In 1854, a shoe factory was set up in the village but Fritz Bally left the fledgling business and Carl Franz Bally carried on under the corporate name "C.F. Bally."
By the 1860s Bally employed more than 500 people. Within another decade it had built an international reputation for quality and design in both men's and women's shoes and expanded operations outside of Switzerland to Buenos Aires, Argentina, Montevideo, Uruguay, and Paris, France.
Carl Franz Bally died in 1899 and his sons carried on with the business. Although the Bally family maintained voting control, in 1907 "C.F. Bally & Co. Ltd." went public, their shares listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange. The added capital allowed massive expansion for their much-in-demand shoes and by 1916 they employed more than 7,000 people.
The company survived the Great Depression of the 1930s and the difficulties of World War II to expand globally with great success in the post-War era including a successful entry into the North American market. In 1976 they added clothing, handbags, and other leather accessories. The following year, the Bally family sold their interest in the company. Numerous difficulties followed and the company struggled under poor management against a tide of low cost products from developing countries flooding the global market. In 1999, Bally was sold to the American investment fund Texas Pacific Group.
Today the company is headquartered in Caslano, near Milan, Italy.
Bally shoes gained a popularity with rappers in the late 1980s (along with other high-end fashion lines such as Gucci) due to their luxury status. Bally shoes are specifically mentioned in songs by a wide array of rappers ranging from Jay-Z to Dana Dane. Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew (featuring MC Ricky D aka Slick Rick) may have been the first to mention Bally shoes in a rap when they put the line, "Put on the Bally shoes and the fly green socks," into "The Show/La Di Da Di" (1985). Bally shoes are iconic of old-school hip hop.
