2008 Woodie Awards
Sneaker Selection A Status Symbol
Connie Yan
Issue date: 3/21/06 Section: Focus
The air-bubble sneaker trend is fairly universal among style groups. There are several types that only certain people would be wear, depending on the your type of style. The hip-hop world has taken the athletic shoe and made it a status symbol. Wearing them with suits to award ceremonies has become acceptable. One way of wearing them is to have the laces untied, which, aside from making a statement and creating a safety hazard, serves no purpose whatsoever. One way of sporting the laceless look is tying the bow underneath the tongue of the sneaker, which is tad safer and you get the same look. Having top-of-the-line kicks is an absolute necessity.
A recent advertising campaign by Nike featured football greats like Bo Jackson wearing their new and very expensive sneaker line. The ad campaign was aimed at the African-American market and was placed in African-American communities. As a result of the ads, the desire to own the $125 shoes increased to the point that parents put necessities aside to purchase them for children. Teenagers were shot and killed for their shoes.
The original Keds sold for about a dollar when they first appeared, but now they can run anywhere from $20 in to the hundreds of dollars, depending on the pair you desire.
Men alone spend about $8.7 billion on athletic footwear a year. If you're spending so much, no wonder you take such good care of them. Sneaker enthusiast web site sneaker-nation.com gives tips on how to clean them with cotton swabs, bleach, suede brushes and even toothpicks. Seems like an awful lot of work for shoes designed for trudging through the field.
A recent advertising campaign by Nike featured football greats like Bo Jackson wearing their new and very expensive sneaker line. The ad campaign was aimed at the African-American market and was placed in African-American communities. As a result of the ads, the desire to own the $125 shoes increased to the point that parents put necessities aside to purchase them for children. Teenagers were shot and killed for their shoes.
The original Keds sold for about a dollar when they first appeared, but now they can run anywhere from $20 in to the hundreds of dollars, depending on the pair you desire.
Men alone spend about $8.7 billion on athletic footwear a year. If you're spending so much, no wonder you take such good care of them. Sneaker enthusiast web site sneaker-nation.com gives tips on how to clean them with cotton swabs, bleach, suede brushes and even toothpicks. Seems like an awful lot of work for shoes designed for trudging through the field.