Mares was founded in 1949 by former Istrian diver Ludovico Mares, who served in the Austrian Navy during World War I. Mares quickly became a small industrial company with a continuous increase in sales and never an absence of ideas for new and improved products. As the passion for diving grew around the world in the late ‘60s, the company expanded into the European diving and snorkeling market. Between 1978 and 1982, Mares earned an undisputed place as the global market leader in fins: today nearly all diving and snorkeling fins are produced using plastic materials, according to the manufacturing process invented by Mares.