No-Skid Scuffle

Top-Sider vs. Timberland

Along with Lacoste alligators and chino trousers, Sperry Top-Sider shoes have come to epitomize the popular preppie look. Invented in the 1930s by a Connecticut yachtsman to help sailors keep their footing on slick decks, the white-soled, dark brown deck shoes have become a favorite with landlubbers from Newport, R.I., to Newport, Calif., who wear them more for status than for safety.

Sperry's dominance of the booming boat-shoe market is not unchallenged, however. The Timberland Co., a family-owned business that operates out of a former mill in Newmarket, N.H., is aggressively going after the no-skid business.

Timberland's assault started last year, with an advertising campaign under the headline THE BOAT SHOE THAT'S ABOUT TO BLOW SPERRY TOPSIDER OUT OF THE WATER. The full-page ads claimed that the Sperry shoe had a "painted on" pigment that dries and cracks, was often machine made, used painted metal eyelets that chip, and had a less durable sole.

Top-Sider kicked back with a lawsuit filed in Massachusetts Superior Court, charging that the comparison in the ads was inaccurate. The suit was settled when Timberland agreed to change the text of the ads, but not the headline. Timberland has since filed a suit of its own in the U.S. district court in Concord, N.H., after dis covering that the three sets of patent numbers on the Top-Sider sole had expired in 1955, 1957 and 1959. While Top-Sider has since removed the numbers from its soles, its attorneys contend that the use of the expired patent numbers was not illegal.

This year Timberland made another advance on the advertising front with a poll of "worldclass sailors" that claimed to show overwhelming preference for its shoe. Crowed the headline: 151 WORLD-CLASS SAILORS PROVE SPERRY TOPSIDER IS LOSING ITS GRIP. Meanwhile, Timberland is happily handing out reprints of a Playboy "Fashion Guide" interview in which Conservative Columnist William F. Buckley Jr., a transatlantic sailor who always tries to put his right foot forward, calls Timberland's product "the world's most comfortable shoe." To prove that Timberland's popularity cuts across political lines, the accompanying letter notes that "Senator Kennedy recently requested a pair of Timberland boat shoes."

Sperry has been trying to stay above the fray by ignoring Timberland's offensive. Sperry's ads stress the "classic" and "traditional" aspects of its shoe. After all, it really is just not preppie to pay much attention to the competition.