It is in the late 70 S that the sneaker really picked up in the popular culture. I had witness someone telling me “ isn’t that keds that was selling two dollars the pair of sneakers?”. Two dollars a pair of sneaker! What two dollars would be today according to the inflation? It has the same buying power as 12.99 $. Do you see a lot of sneakers at this price nowdays ? For sure if we watch the evolution of the sneakers there is something that did picked up in the 70 s to make the shoes popular. However, it was still the two dollars affordable pair of shoes. So when did a two dollars item evolved into a 300 dollars item and why ? Well, for sure sneakers are an object that can carry an entire thesis The premise of this article might be unpopular but questions still remains. Why does a woman would wear sneakers ? Why the luxury industry is adoring them in their collections? How and why does low income product became a frenetic item in the luxury industry and within itself?Sneakers were first invented in the late 1800 century by the US Rubber Company officially. The first sole sneakers was invented by a man named Elijah McCoy. It was made initially to improved the sole shoes repLACE by rubber. Then it was taken and transformed into a hole new product by the U.S rubber Company for them to sell a few years after Elijah McCoy invented them. Probably a few of you know, that rubber was a material substitute to leather or wood and would result of a more affordable pairs of shoes. Indeed, they were first of all marketed for low income household. The rubber made no noise as people would step, the product got his name not by the form but simply by the noise it would not make. Sneaky ? It is so easy to sneak around with those items. To this day it gave the name sneakers. It was not to slow to enter into the athletic wears for Tennis & Basketball player and then was adopted by the youth later on. Today, everyone wear sneakers. Last time I took the train and all ages range were wearing sneakers. The 20 people in from my vision point 12 of them were wearing sneakers. Not the last collections, running shoes old, new, high or law. The guy next to me was wearing blue running sneakers and the two girls at my left one of them was wearing them. Quantitatively speaking if in a simple view point , more than the half of the people and gender confounded were wearing them this product is part of our culture.
In the 70’s, sneakers were starting to get popular exactly like today were a majority of people seem to adopt the sneaker culture. The only difference was that it was adopted by the youth. Nike came out with the first waffle tread, converse purchase the right from B.F.Goodrich, Asics first started to appeared and Adidas who were the first shoes sneakers art in the chain of brands.
The Mass production of the 60’s expended the market . Most importantly in the 70’s what happened was that in 1976, the first woman sneakers appeared. Whom extended the production and popularized it even more as not only a sport item but as an everyday product. The expansion, the mass production and the fact that the youth would wear it really can explain why today 5 people out of ten would wear a pairs of sneakers. It is comfortable and on a Saturday morning people going out in Manhattan wouldn’t want to wear anything else, beside something comfortable practical and fashionable that the sneakers embodied. More than the half in this wagon were wearing sneakers.
The fact that the sneakers arrived also in the feminine market really helped spread the culture faster since now everyone could wear it.
The sneaker culture could finally start.
But how the sneaker culture could develop so rapidly ? The big sneaker giants like Nike or Adidas will always dominate the market but the sneakers is not brand attach. Indeed, in this same subway for example two girls were wearing just simple fabric toile sneakers and a man of approximately 60 years old was not wearing a brand as well. They seemed to own the sneakers. In fact, this proves that the sneakers is a genra that can be appropriate by brand or non brand, like the genra a category within itself. In the register of fashion and ready to wear sneakers have developed its own genra and sections. In the 1980’s the first 100$ pair of sneakers the Air Jordan first appeared on the market. As well as the following innovation of the Air One. In 40 years we have gone though 100$ to pairs that are sold on auction 104.000 Dollars. It happen in an auction room in Hong-Kong last year. The internet lost his sense over the news:”The Gilmeister @thegilmeister88
Just set a new WORLD RECORD for the most expensive pair of sneakers ever at auction Worldwide!!! #nikemag @Nike ! Sold them for US$104k!!!
10:34 AM - 11 Oct 2016.” As the culture keeps expending the comfort keeps growing.
Sneakers are not an easy conversation to have. It does reveal passions. It has been so accepted by the popular culture that discussion about their presences is extremely contested. The world of the sneaker culture is so broad that there were no specific angle to take it to.I heard an interesting story that ended my worry to be unpopular and to discuss a subject that made me ask so much questions. There is this woman that exclaimed offended: “ Can you believe this ? She is coming to an important contract meeting with her pink sneakers on! Can you really believe it? Me I am not perfect but I dress accordingly for the meeting. I have small heels for everyone meeting.”
What about the luxury Industry? Are they condemn to heels because they associate it with a certain standard? If I Choose to go into an important meeting do I have to dress a certain way? The sad truth is that there is no real argument to those circumstances but examples.
When Steve Jobs was doing his almost religious ritual speeches to introduce his new product he did adopt like in corporate America a uniform. Apple is also part of corporate America and I assumed that they also had important meetings. Is it fair to notice that he did his speeches his uniform was the black Tuttle neck, the American Jean and in the classic new balance sneakers each and every time a new creation lunched at Apple in everytime a new inventions came out at apple, they would have his ritual speeches with his uniform on and the sneakers were part of it.
This story is not about someone judging someone else but someone following religiously the law of corporate America.
Is coming to a very important meeting with Nike Future sold for 104.000 dollars would have been appropriate ? Steve Jobs or important developers could have wore it in front of an entire audience? The truth is that we want more comfort and ease. It is a genra part of the popular culture everybody of any age group posses a pair of sneakers. Isn’t it a cause to consequences to see it appears everywhere ? Does sneakers Carry circumstances ?
If sneakers are a genra then everyone can posses one pair the culture of comfort and practicality moved also in the closet of everyone else but is sneakers a real luxury item ? As a matter of fact ,by seeing the Dior hand painted sneakers, to the sneakers Chanel. The luxury industry took the genra and did run with it. Can we come to a meeting in Dior Sneakers ? If Micheal Jordan was the first 100$ Dollars get out a pair of sneakers, and the price keep growing and growing then yes. The passion that sneakers culture develop is that nowadays everyone wants his own. People are making line and instant sold out each time the Jordan appears. So, luxury had to have it and represent it in their collection. The sneakers just keep expending and expending everywhere under every form. The luxury sneakers like Good Gone Bad Clothing Store Vintage Prada Shoes to the new hand painted sneakers by Dior. If you people lined up hours to pay 400 $ for the last Jordan it is logical that the genra crosses the industry and is also being used by the luxury industry. It means that people demand their comfort and the we have moved into a society that chose practicality and mobile population. I would like to put the argument that if the sneakers has entered into the luxury industry it is not anymore a period in time but it will be a timeless style. I mentioned earlier the example of the meeting and a person coming into the meeting with sneakers. Yesterday I did an another statistic. I came into this very hip styled place. It is always in those places that I run the most effective statistics you have no idea on the amount of people that you end up having in proximity to you. There was 50 people within an hour time in this corporate work frame 35 people were wearing sneakers. From the guy in the elevator leaving his office to the person going to a networking event after his job. It was 35 people among 50 again in the middle of the week were asking for practicality and mobility. Along with those needs and the technological improvement of the genre we can positively affirm that the sneaker is the shoe of the future.
I would like to also write about a point that has never been mentioned all along my research about sneakers. Is that the prices will keep increasing because unlike other shoes the sneaker has the capacity to constantly metamorphose itself. No other shoes or accessories as the possibilities to adapt to new trends, areas, people, mobility than the sneaker.It constantly offers a new purpose. This genre offers a total and permanent flexibility that it offers. I am in clothing and technology freaks and it would have never been possible for me to write just a small article about sneakers at all. If we observe their evolution only from the 80’s, it is the moving, evolving, innovating and constantly.
When I first started being interested in clothing and technology which is my passion I had strictly nothing but a bit of knowledge and creativity Indeed, the fashion industry constantly changes more and more rapidly but their way to do it stayed the same. It is a feodal way of doing it a needle, bobbin. However sneakers and my close study of them showed clearly that they are the item of progressiveness. I always have been seeking for hours and hours, and years what made the sneakers so special in our culture and it is clear that it had became the genra of the future. My dream was to work at Nike or Adidas to learn more about the technology of the shoe instead I had to do it on my own by analyzing every bit of it. I am not certain of a lot of things but it is to me certain that the genre of the sneakers is here to stay.
For example, for a shoes to cross into industries like we also have to imagine that the technology of it have also advances so far. Here we will focus how the technology improved so much to raise the price and make sneakers not a sport object but a part of the daily culture life of people.
Indeed the price of it raise because of the technological improvement. This really blossomed in the 80’s Starting by the hundreds of material innovations that started to appears inside the designs of each category of sneakers. Constant design and technological innovation forced the exponential growth of the sneakers into the popular culture. Mesh for example started by adding a lightweight and breathable characteristics to their designs. The use of textiles like nylon and canvas helped to get rid of the heavy leather. Thin fabrics started to get more and more popular and made a solid light weight shoe. To this day this is still the standard textile for the basketball industry. The biggest sneaker innovation was made by the Nike Air and The Air Jordan was also an extension of it in terms of design. The cushioning and the idea to add air into a in order to balance the speed of the walk or the run was revolutionary.
Then the gel came also into place as a technological innovation and will continue to grow and evolve. It is excellent for running, the gel give a light weight and a redundant consistency a full adaptation of the form and the speed, which will keep his following.
We will see the technology of the shoes in depth into an another article. This is a full article of it’s own. However, an another more recent technological innovation is the boost used by foam and it has responsiveness. Boost form is expending. All of this chronology of real analytics example to conclude that the technical improvement correspond in time to the first Air Jordan 100 $ Sneakers and at the same times the first Air Max.
I would like to finish this article on a story that is personal to me. It is difficult to open up about yourself but this will explain my love for sneakers and why I will always wear them and continues to study them or invent some. I was six years old that for the first time in my life I met Marc. The day, I met Marc I met sneakers. Marc is an adopted kid by my mom friend. He came to my native country at the age of 12. Marc was from the country side of Rwanda, where 1995 the genocide happened. He saw his entire family killed by the machetes. Besides the fact that death is already hard, barbaric decapitation is above atrocities. I meet Marc on my summer of vacation were we all went camping all together. Marc was jumping up and down the ail of the camping site showing his new sneaker. They were white basic Nike Sneakers. He never had sneakers, he was even showing stranger his new sneakers. Some scholars says that everything is done during your childhood. I am not so sure about this theory but this story never left me. We cannot measure how things have an impression over a child. One thing is sure is that today whenever I see people buying sneakers I think about Marc. Because how saw for the first time the impact of someone who had nothing, worst than having nothing lost it all could still find a deep joy and reconstruct a love and a desire for life.
I wish that Marc remember the feelings that he shared with everyone on that august. I wished that Marc remembers how simple feelings can evolve into deep passion and love in how things mark us instead of accumulating greed. This day I learned without knowing it how to communicate your love and interest for what you find marvelous and interesting. This is why this memory stays and I can continue to see it. Because it was that, That Marc Taught me without knowing it. Humans teaches us things though observation and we absorb it, the most important is to be aware of it and know how to grasp it.
