A leather company looks beyond leather
Coleco began as the Connecticut Leather Company, but its name outlasted its original line of business. As demand for shoe leather fell, the company moved into products made from very different materials, including plastic wading pools. The shift was more than a new item in a catalog: it meant changing what the business manufactured to find customers in markets where demand was stronger.
The name stayed; the products kept changing
Coleco later became known for video game consoles and Cabbage Patch Kids. Those products had little to do with shoe leather, but they show how far the company’s business had traveled from its starting point. The name “Coleco” preserved a shortened trace of Connecticut Leather Company even as the company’s output changed.
That contrast is the memorable part of the story: a name can keep recording a company’s past while its products reveal how it adapted to a falling market. Coleco’s old identity fit on the label; its new business was a plastic pool, a game console, or a sought-after doll.
