Think rabid fans of late author Hunter S. Thompson and knee-jerk bloggers are hyperventilating over Converse's use of his image in their ad campaign? Wait until they find out Thompson's estate started talking with the shoe company shortly after the gonzo writer fatally shot himself in 2005 about an HST edition Chuck Taylor low-top.
Thompson was hardly a fashion icon, and by no means a clotheshorse. He did, however, have a look: aviator sunglasses, the occasional Hawaiian shirt, cigarette holder fitted with a smoldering Dunhill, and a Tilley hat crushed down upon his near-bald pate (with a convenient secret stash compartment under the crown)—and white, Chuck Taylor All-Star low-cut sneakers by Converse.
"Since he bought his first pair in the early 1960s in San Francisco he has worn them every day of his life," the author's widow Anita Thompson tells Radar. "There are still over 70 pairs of them at the house."