How Sneaker Culture Took Over The World
Sneakers have come a long way from when they were first invented in 1860s England for the upper-class playing croquet and tennis.
Long worn for function rather than fashion, today sneakers are an entire culture—both a form of self-expression and a high art found in museum exhibits and designer auction houses where a single pair can fetch millions of dollars.
As Ben Affleck’s star-studded film Air depicts, the emergence of sneaker culture can be traced to Nike’s 1984 collaboration with basketball superstar Michael Jordan on their iconic Air Jordans. Here’s the story of sneakers—and the sneakerheads who collect them.
Air Jordans and the rise of sneaker culture
Most sneakerheads credit the advent of their subculture to the rise of athlete-endorsed shoes in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Converse’s Chuck Taylor All-Stars had dominated the basketball courts for decades—and brands like Puma and Adidas started to get in on the action.
“What was happening in New York was an intertwining of basketball, hip-hop, and [break dancing],” says Elizabeth Semmelhack, director and senior curator of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, which in 2013 became the first North American museum to devote an exhibit to the history of sneakers.
But what transformed sneaker culture into a true phenomenon was the 1985 release of Nike’s Air Jordan 1s. In 1984, Michael Jordan was a talented rookie who had yet to play in a professional game. Despite that, Nike—better known then as a running shoe company—saw Jordan as the future of their brand and signed him to a five-year, $2.5 million endorsement deal.
Air Jordan 1s were not your grandfather’s basketball shoes. Debuting in bold hues of white, black, and red, Air Jordans were a defiant taunt to the NBA guidelines that required footwear to be 51 percent white. Sensing a marketing opportunity, Nike paid the $5,000 fine players received each time he stepped on the court wearing the shoes. The bet paid off: As Jordan proved to be one of the greatest basketball players of all time, the sneaker’s popularity skyrocketed.
Sneaker culture began to take off beyond the basketball court too. When the influential hip-hop group Run-D.M.C. released their single “My Adidas”in 1986, it earned the group a first-of-its-kind endorsement deal with the brand. Soon after, Kurt Cobain of the grunge band Nirvana made Converse a symbol of rebellion and youth.
Meanwhile, another cultural shift was taking place as white-collar businesses introduced casual Fridays. “It’s when you have an opening of the male wardrobe,” Semmelhack says. Suddenly, men were allowed to put aside their suits “and wear something one day a week that showed people who they really were.”
Sneakers become status symbols
As sneakers became increasingly coveted, footwear companies turned to generating even more hype by collaborating with celebrities and luxury brands, as well as releasing small batches of limited-edition shoes with eye-popping designs.
Rare sneakers became sought-after among collectors, and the sneaker reseller market flourished. “I have Air Jordan 1, 2, 3, and 5, so I better find 4,” Semmelhack says of the mentality that drove the rise of collectors. As resellers began to mark those shoes up at incredible costs, she adds, it only reinforced how special they were.
Pivotal artists like Rihanna, Travis Scott, and Kanye West defined the shoe game for nearly a decade with their iconic collaborations with brands. And then came the Kardashians.
“The Kardashian era had a huge impact on the culture,” says Jazerai Allen-Lord, a ground-breaking sneaker strategist, designer, and writer. After reality TV star Kim Kardashian married rapper-turned-fashion-designer Kanye West, she and her sisters started to wear his designs, which “helped target a whole new demographic of people to experience sneaker culture. It was a blending of high and low fashion, which the shoe industry never really seen before.”
By the mid-2010s, sneakers had become solid gold status symbols—literally, in the case of hip-hop artist Drake, who in 2016 commissioned a one-of-a-kind pair of Air Jordans wrapped in 24-carat solid gold. The estimated $2.1 million sneakers weighed 50 pounds each.
“Wearing rare and cool sneakers [became] an expression of one’s social status,” says Yuniya (Yuni) Kawamura, professor of sociology at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. “They want to show off what they have and say that they are slightly better than others.”
But not all sneakerheads are this extreme. “The stereotype is that we are all in this for excess and status,” Allen-Lord says. “It’s a piece of the culture but it isn’t the whole culture.”