L.A. Gear Passes Converse for 3rd Place in Shoe Race

L.A. Gear, the high-flying maker of trendy athletic footwear, has hot-footed it past Converse to become the nation’s third-best-selling athletic shoe brand, behind Nike and Reebok.

For the six months ended May 31, the company, with offices in Marina del Rey, has said it expects to report sales of about $223 million, matching sales for all of last year. That easily would top the $175 million in sales during the same period projected for Converse, owned by Interco.

L.A. Gear is “really the boss brand out there in the Valley Girl market,” said John Horan, publisher of Sporting Goods Management News, a newsletter in Yardley, Pa.

Nike, meanwhile, “continues to be the hottest thing in the market,” Horan said, adding that he expects the company’s “swoop”-adorned brand to bolt past Reebok when those companies report full-year results in mid-July.

Horan credited L.A. Gear with picking out a market--teen-agers and children hungry for trendy footwear--and sticking with it. “They’re really kind of the first ‘echo baby boom’ brand to develop,” he said.