Trends

You just can’t keep a good sneaker down

Fashions change, but sneakers remain the same. Today’s youngsters wear sneakers that look just like those worn by their grannies when they were young in the fifties. The sneaker survived through the ages, catering to different generations and different tastes of consumers... even though the fashion ideals of the eras are so vastly different.

But, while sneakers may look the same on the outside, it is the interesting goodies on the inside that really set the brands apart.

Sneakers have prevailed through the thick and thin that has been thrown at the human race over the past century. How do they do it? Perhaps the answer is simple: sneaker brands are associated with the heroes of the day.

Courting the stars

Basketball star Charles Chuck Taylor made Converse’s popularity soar after he adopted the shoes and become a salesman for the brand. Taylor suggested some changes to the shoes, one of which was to add a nonslip sole. In 1923 Taylor’s signature was added to the shoe’s ankle patch and Chucks All Stars was born — one of the most successful and well-known styles to date. Originally the style was only available in black, but in 1947 they released a white version. It is said that Taylor personally preferred the style in unbleached white (then simply known as white) high tops. Later Converse came under pressure from some of the basketball teams to manufacture in more colours and in 1966 Converse started releasing different coloured styles.

In the 50’s, PF Flyers was one of the first brands to team up with a professional athlete. They collaborated with Bob Houdini of the Hardwood Cousy of Boston Celtics to create a line of classic basketball designs. The low-top All American became Cousy’s signature shoe. In 1972 Converse bought PF Flyers, but they soon had to sell the brand due to the American government filing an antitrust suit claiming that if both companies combined they would have a monopoly for sneakers. PF Flyers were featured prominently in the 1993 movie The Sandlot. Towards the end of the film, the character Benny, who has to outrun a ferocious dog, wears an all-black pair of Center Hi’s. This scene led to the coining of the phrase “wearing his PF Flyers”, used for example when a player is running very fast in a basketball game. The style worn in the movie was re-released as Center Hi Sandlot Edition.

adidas’ Superstar, released in 1969 as a low-top version of the Pro Model basketball shoe, featured the famous rubber shelltoe and was the first low-top basketball shoe to feature an all-leather upper. With its rubber toe protection and non-marking sole the shoe soon caught the attention of some of the best players within the NCAA and NBA. Within a few years the Superstar was worn by over 75% of all NBA players.

In the early 80’s Nike was facing a problem. They had developed a white man jogging brand image and the running shoe phenomenon, which had fuelled their sales up till then, was slowing down. They needed to reinvent themselves and break into a new market. This is when Nike spied rookie player Michael Jordan and they saw an opportunity in him. In 1984 Nike signed Jordan to a five-year $2,5-m deal plus royalties and fringe benefits and the following year the Air Jordan 1 was released. With its black and red styling the Air Jordan 1 immediately stood out on the basketball courts among the other predominately white shoes. This resulted in a banning by the NBA (the vibrant black and red colours violated the league’s uniform rules), but Jordan wore the shoes anyway and racked up fines up to $5 000 per game. This all gave Nike excellent publicity and they were happy to pay these fines to keep their shoe in the public’s eye.

The 70’s saw Fila trying to break into the sporting apparel and footwear market. They approached Bjorn Borg to wear their clothes and they struck gold as Borg went on to win eleven titles, all the while wearing Fila. They received global publicity due to this their first ever endorsement. Despite continuing with various endorsements through the 70’s and into the 80’s, Fila still longed for a stronger following in the US. Until 1994 — NBA star Grant Hill from the Detroit Pistons agreed to endorse Fila’s shoes and the brand gained the consumer following that they had been looking for. The Hill, the style which resulted from the endorsement deal, is one of Fila’s fastest selling ranges.

It’s all in the tunes

During the 50’s and 60’s designers and marketers opened up to the idea of specifically targeting younger people. Before World War II this was unheard of as children wore smaller versions of adults’ clothing styles. Post-WWII saw the start of teenagers dressing to express themselves — and most commonly the expression was one of rebellion.

Teenagers found heroes in the likes of Elvis Presley and James Dean, both young people making names for themselves at the time and being rebellious and off the beaten track.

When rock ‘n roll came on the scene, music itself became an expression of rebellion, because parents and authority figures disliked this genre. This dislike in turn attracted teenagers even more to the style and helped make the genre an emblem of youth. While the genre divided generations, it crossed gender, racial and even country borders to unite teens.

Presley sang in the early rockabilly¹ style, the first form of rock ‘n roll, and cemented the song Blue Suede Shoes into the hearts and minds of that generation of teens when he released his version of Carl Perkins’ song in 1956. With Presley’s stage presence and rockstar image he became teenagers’ hero soon after he stepped into the music scene. When Johnny Cash suggested to Perkins to write a song about blue suede shoes Perkins thought it was the most absurd suggestion and that he did not know the first thing what to write about shoes. Perkins admits he did not even know how to spell suede, spelling it “swade”. His inspiration came when he was performing one night and saw a young couple dancing in front of the stage — the young man wearing a pair of suede shoes and cautioning his lady to stay off his shoes for fear of damaging them. “But don’t you step on my blue suede shoes/You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes.” The immortal words were penned and the rest is history. Blue suede shoes were rather impractical with the colour running when it came in contact with wetness and your feet ending up blue, but they became an instant fad after the song’s success with both men and women wearing the shoes.

The previous year James Dean starred in the movie Rebel Without a Cause playing a rebellious and misunderstood teen. He wore his Converse All Stars in the movie. Teens found a character that they could relate to in Dean’s character, Jim Stark, and rushed to stores to buy Dean’s chosen footwear. The movie premiered a month after Dean’s fatal car crash.

Converse has appealed to rock fans through the decades. In the 50’s the brand was popular among the greasers² subculture as well as among fans of rockabilly. During the 70’s, punk rock fans adopted Converse as a fashion trend, emulating the style of several of the punk rock bands that were popular at the time. In the 90’s, Converse relived a resurgence in popularity as fans copied Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain’s style and with it his love for All Stars. Cobain in turn is said to have worn the shoes due to the influence that All Stars-wearing punk rock bands had on him in his youth. Cobain was wearing a black pair of Converse One Star sneakers when he shot himself. Cobain subsequently endorsed a pair of Converse One Tops from beyond the grave for their 100th anniversary celebrations. The pair featured design elements from Cobain’s drawings and writings as well as his autograph and came in three versions: Chuck Taylor All Stars, Jack Purcell’s and One Stars.

In 1986 Run DMC released their song My adidas, both as much a tribute to the adidas Superstar as a reaction to the anti-sneaker rap poem by Dr Gerald W. Deas, Felon Sneakers — Dr Deas likened the trend of wearing your sneakers without laces to the way prisoners have to wear their shoes making it more difficult for prisoners to walk and run away. Run DMC was known to wear their street clothes on stage as well as their Superstar sneakers with either fat laces or no laces and the tongue pushed out. They were also known for their trench coats and big jewellery, which became popular with rappers and set the stage for hip-hop style. This was the first endorsement of a brand by a music artist and adidas did not pay a cent for the excellent exposure. After realising how much promotion they were getting, adidas signed a deal with the rap group — the first endorsement deal between hip hop artists and a major corporation.

Hip hop artists adopted the street-style attire, even for formal events. This pushed sneakers even further into the fashion books.

Today it seems that there is barely a music or television star without their own sneaker label or partnership with an already established sneaker brand. Together with the endorsements come the stars’ fans who flock to emulate their heroes’ looks and fashions.

Rbk used this kick-butt anti-hero appeal for the urban youth when they partnered with street-appeal music artists like Jay-Z, 50 Cent and Nelly to create signature sneaker styles as part of their I am what I am campaign. Locally, they partnered with our very own Kabelo.

Skate’s up!

Vans (Originally known as the Van Doren Rubber Company), is a skateboard footwear icon. When the brand started out in the 60’s they achieved huge success as they made their brand synonymous with the big name skateboarders of the day. Back then skateboarding was seen as surfing on land and not taken very seriously by non-skateboarders, so there was not much around for skateboarders to wear. Skateboarders were looked down upon and seen as riff-raff. With Vans came footwear that were sturdy enough to last the wear and tear by the ‘boarders — and the brand was worn by the international skateboarders, giving world wide exposure to the brand. As a skateboarder you needed the uniform — and that included the right footwear.

However, the brand’s huge success was also its downfall. The company tried to branch out into different sports, for example basketball, baseball and wrestling, but these arenas brought it no luck forcing the company to file for bankruptcy in 1983. Three years later the company had made enough money to be able to pay off all their creditors. This come back was partly attributed to Sean Penn’s character, Jeff Spicoli, in the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High in 1982.

Nike joined the skating bandwagon late in the 80’s. Some skaters used the Air Jordans to skate in. The basketball shoes were designed to absorb shock, provide lateral support and withstand the stress of the cutting and slashing of pro basketball players — but even with all this they still wore out fast due to the paces that skaters put them through. The Bones Brigade, a well known skating team that counted Tony Hawk among their members, wore the Air Jordans throughout their most famous skateboarding video, The Search For Animal Chin (1987).

If it aint broke…

Today there is a sneaker for everyone in the family, from the newly born baby to your oldest relative. This is quite remarkable for a footwear style that started out made for athletes demanding a lot from their shoes — and it is one reason why the sneaker will probably always be around. The sneaker is a basic part of the modern wardrobe.

Lately the answer to why people wear sneakers is quite often that they wore it when they were younger, and they have simply continued to wear them. Their taste in sneakers might have simply changed, perhaps becoming more subdued and less bold, perhaps not. People are creatures of habit after all and if something works, why change it?