Feiyue

Feiyue's roots can be traced to the 1920s when cloth shoes were manufactured in Shanghai. In 1958, DaFu Rubber Company designed and produced a kind of civil shoe known as "Feiyue," a modification of the cloth shoes used by the Shaolin monks. They gained popularity during the 1930s for their robustness, flexibility, and comfort, which were considered essential requirements for martial arts and various forms of athletics. In 2015, BBC International Launched a collaboration with Feiyue and Peanuts for a limited-edition collection. Before BBC's acquisition deal in August 2014, Feiyue had major success in collaborations, including collections with Celine, André, Casio, Bonton, NSBQ, and more; and continues with other collaborations beginning with Peanuts. The American Feiyue company collaborated in 2016 with the Solid & Striped clothing company, with textiles based on Solid & Striped designs. == Intellectual property rights dispute ==

A dispute exists surrounding the trademark and intellectual property rights to Feiyue between the United States-owned company, Feiyue International, LLC, and Shanghai Da Fu Rubber Co, the company that originally manufactured the shoe. Liu Qinglong, manager of Shanghai Da Fu Rubber Co Ltd, said of the situation in 2017, “No one in China knew about commodity intellectual property rights at the time and it wasn’t until 2007–08 that we found out the French had registered the trademark.” According to the Young Post: "Liu claims the French company took advantage of the Chinese at a time when China was still grappling with capitalism and transitioning from all factories being state-owned assets to devolving some rights to individual businesses." However, Da Fu maintains that Bastien made this purchase from a manufacturer and not from them, the original company, having not heard of the Bastian at all until 2007. Da Fu took Feiyue International, LLC to court for the rights in France, but lost the lawsuit. == Distinctions between the original authentic Chinese and re-designed American versions ==

The original Chinese versions of the Feiyue shoes and the re-designed American versions have a number of differences. The differences include: Sole The sole of the Chinese Feiyue shoe contains reduced padding on the bottom of the shoe, which is considered desirable for martial arts activities. The sole of the French version has thicker padding on the bottom and is designed for more general-purpose use. The seal at the center of the sole is a green triangle on the Chinese Feiyue, while the marking is a red circle on the American version. However, recently the Chinese version manufactured by Da Fu has begun to use the American red circle; those manufactured by Top One retain the green triangle. Canvas material The canvas material of the Chinese Feiyue shoe is thin, resulting in a large range of ankle flexibility. The martial arts application requires a wide range of foot motions. The canvas material of the American version is much thicker. Color The original Chinese Feiyues originally came in only two colors, black and white, with a HI and LO version of each. The shoes were previously only available in a limited range of styles—simple stripes with some different colors. The range of colors and styles has now grown tremendously both under the American-owned company and the Chinese-owned one, with the BBC International brand offering a wide variety of colors and the Da Fu brand offering a "rainbow" set of shoes. The Chinese version of the shoe, on the other hand, has around 150 different styles of the shoes catered toward Chinese fashion tastes. == References ==