The upper of classic Converse All Stars is made from canvas.
Classic Chuck Taylor All Stars use a cotton-canvas upper stitched to a rubber toe cap and rubber outsole. Canvas made the shoe relatively light, flexible, and breathable compared with the leather basketball footwear that later became common in competitive play.
The material was part of the shoe’s original identity when Converse introduced its early basketball model in 1917. The shoe was designed around a simple rubber-and-canvas construction that provided grip and movement without the heavier structure of many modern performance shoes. A loose canvas lining also helped improve flexibility and reduce rubbing.
“Classic” matters because Converse now sells All Stars in many materials, including leather, suede, synthetic fabrics, and specialty textiles. Those alternatives do not change the standard answer for the traditional model. The rubber components are also easy to confuse with the upper: the toe cap, midsole, and outsole are rubber, but the main fabric section surrounding the foot is canvas.
The familiar Chuck Taylor identity came later, after Charles “Chuck” Taylor helped revise and promote the shoe in the 1920s. The canvas upper, however, remained one of its defining construction features.