![]() ![]() Kanye’s Yeezy Boost 350 collection sold out on Saturday in 15 minutes in short order, a pair of the shoes appeared on eBay with an asking price of $10,000. Today, as a result of all this, athletic shoe releases are met with the same kind of fervent enthusiasm that fashion shows are, and not just in sneakerhead culture. The song marked on the one hand the birth of the intimate artistic and commercial relationship between hip-hop and sneakers it also signaled that the shoes had solidified their status as status symbols. Nike happily paid the fines.) And in 1986, Run-DMC released “ My Adidas”- not the first musical ode to footwear, but a telling one. (As worn on-court, CNN notes, the shoes were initially banned by the NBA commissioner David Stern, on the grounds that they violated his stipulation that court shoes be majority-white. In 1985, betting on a rookie athlete named Michael Jordan, Nike itself released its Air Jordans. In 1984, Gucci released its iconic Gucci Tennis shoes. Seeing the potential, other designers joined the party. Available in a variety of colors, and featuring, for the first time, the iconic “swoosh” logo, the shoes were meant, CNN notes, “for those who wished to stand out on the dance floor track as well as the running track.” The Nike Cortez, released in 1972, took advantage of twin cultural trends-conspicuous consumption and a renewed obsession with fitness. And the shoe’s design, too, had moved away from athleticism alone. The Cortez was released at the height of the 1972 Olympics-and Nike had shrewdly ensured that the athletes on the Olympic field were clad in the shoes. The Nike Cortez, released in 1972, took advantage of twin cultural trends-conspicuous consumption and a renewed obsession with fitness ( running, in particular)-to market the be-waffled sole Bill Bowerman had invented. ![]() It wasn’t until Nike came along, however, under the marketing leadership of Knight, that sneakers and fashion became nearly inextricably connected. The company? The Converse Rubber Shoe Company. In 1921, to set its version of the newly popular shoes apart from those of its competitors, one company recruited a basketball player-both to improve their shoe’s design and then put his name on the final product. In response to that democratization came one of the earliest nods toward shoes-as-fashion. As the nation's first gym rats came onto the scene, shoe companies began mass-producing shoes to fit their needs. The sneaker market grew, however, in the early 20th century-particularly after World War I, whose effects had led to a national emphasis on fitness and athleticism. Rubber, at that time, was expensive, and leisure time was rare the combination meant that the innovative shoes were worn, for the most part, only by elites. in the 1890s-products, because the treads were the point, of the U.S Rubber Company. The first rubber-soled athletic shoes debuted in the U.S. He wasn’t in the shoe business, Knight insisted. Knight knew, early on, what we take for granted today: that even the most practical of footwear-even the shoes we wear for such dull reasons as performance and, worse, comfort-can also function as fashion. ![]() And that Mo’ne Davis, she of Little League World Series fame, has released a line of fashion sneakers for girls ( $75 a pair). And that, last September, Alice Temperley styled her runway looks with sneakers. And that, last January, Karl Lagerfeld of Chanel and Raf Simons of Dior sent signature sneakers down their runways. It’s because of Knight that, for example, Kanye West has a signature shoe, the Yeezy Boost. In the process, however, he did something else: He turned athletic footwear into fashion. Knight transformed Nike, not overnight but close to it, into a global powerhouse, known both for its successes and its controversies. That Nike is now one of the biggest and most recognizable brands in the world is largely the doing of Bowerman’s partner, the man who recently announced his retirement from the company: Phil Knight. ![]()
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