PUMA Pelé Granat

• MODEL: PUMA PELE GRANAT

The PUMA Dallas meets the football legend Pelé himself, kicked in the side with a dash of pomegranate flavor. Or at least that’s our take on the PUMA Pelé Granat.

Yet another mysterious PUMA relic lands into our archive, allowing us the lucky pleasure to ponder over it’s origins and purposes. Say hello to the incredibly slept on PUMA Pelé Granat.

Beginning with just the name alone, this shoe is a total buried treasure and literally zero information about it exists online. What we’ve gathered so far is purely speculative, though fueled by reason and logic. For starters, research on the term ‘granat’ leads to a German word which refers to various forms of mineral (or rock) substance, some of which may be considered as rubies. The particular color referenced by this in English would be ‘garnet’, or the color of pomegranate (linked to the Latin root ‘grānātum’). With a formstripe colored as such, it doesn’t seem so far a leap to presume that PUMA’s designers were carrying the name in this direction.

But Pelé Granat? Why Pelé? Further research takes us into the thick and grueling histories between the Dassler brothers and their two infamous brands. Back in 1970 the second generation of adidas and PUMA leaders (Rudolf’s son, Armin Dassler, and his cousin – Adi’s son – Horst Dassler) made a pact regarding working with Edson Arantes do Nascimento, the world-famous football player more widely known as Pelé. The agreement was simple; neither of them would try to get Pelé to endorse their products, he was to be completely off bounds. Naturally this fell apart within months at the FIFA World Cup when Hans Henningsen (a PUMA representative) made Pelé an offer he couldn’t refuse, and attracted the attention of millions of viewers to his PUMA pair whilst tying his shoes during the opening whistle blow of the game.

Since then, two obvious courses of action took place: all further peace pacts were called off between the two brands and Pelé became solidified with PUMA, putting out a variety of merchandise over the years. Now we’ve no solid proof this is a Pelé endorsed shoe, however that is undoubtedly his signature on the the tongue, leading us to easily believe that this was a special pair made in his honor.

With all of the above in mind, we step back into this vintage pair of PUMA Pelé Granat’s and ask ourselves, what silhouette are these, really? Two piece, dark blue suede body, plastic D-rings for the upper eyestays, and a thick, rounded, uniquely-sculpted outsole. All signs point to the PUMA Dallas.

From our perspective and based on our research, our best guess is that PUMA re-released their incredibly popular Dallas model, changed the formstripe color, and then worked with Pelé for endorsement. But of course, without solid information or sourced catalog photographs, we’ll never quite know for sure. Until then, for those of you who dig these golden oldies, good luck! The hunt is on and it sure ain’t gonna be an easy one.

written by Dylan Cromwell

photography by errol