How sneakers become Cultural Icons: The Stan Smith
By: Reggie Casagrande
When I ask people what their favorite adidas sneaker of all time is they say the Stan Smith. Is it because Stan was cool, had great style and was a great tennis player? Or was this sexy minimalist sneaker just fortunate enough to have been embraced by bloggers, fashion designers, and cool hunters who validated him front row at trendy fashion weeks? Before it was the Stan Smith it was the “Haillet”, a tennis shoe with no cultural validity.
Stan’s son even asked him if he was named after the shoe, which goes to show you the power of a cultural icon, both the shoe and the person. There is a strong connection between culture and sports and for a shoe to resonate and remain timeless, that relationship has to be authentic. The future is as much about the present, and the evolution of sneaker culture, as it is about the past and how the innovations of their day become the inspiration for creating the new. Brands take heritage products from their archives and drive cultural newness through sampling, collaborations and storytelling by partnering with culturally relevant athletes and high touch entertainers.
Sneaker culture started as a subversive group of collectors in search of coolness. Groups of DJ’s, musicians, stylists, and tastemakers took the baton from iconic artists like Bob Marley, Freddie Mercury and Pink Floyd who started wearing adidas in the seventies. Remember, Nike wasn’t actually Nike until 1971 when Blue Ribbon was renamed. Adidas was founded in 1949, and essentially the footwear brand that informed sneaker culture at the time. It was also instrumental in starting the chain reaction for street culture evolving into streetwear with the Run DMC Deal in 1986.
Sneaker culture didn’t really take off until the golden age of hip hop in the late eights and early nineties. Most prominently with “My Adidas” by Run DMC. That deal was the first time a major brand signed an endorsement deal with a hip hop group and cemented the brand’s position in culture.
Michael Jordan was the number 3 draft pick in 1984. Peter Moore designed the Jordan 1 when Michael signed with Nike to break the color barrier of the NBA, this was already a disruptive act of counter culture and quite symbolic if you think about the “color barrier” as a metaphor for the last decade and whats happening in sports today. The shoe was projected to make $3 million the first 3 years, sales exceeded expectations by earning a whopping $126 million in one year. Jordan brand had arrived and was launched with one shoe.
During this time, Mr Magic’s rap attack flooded the New York airwaves, huge radios, kicks, Cazal glasses and Kangol hats defined the look in 1985 when Patrick Ewing was the number one draft pick of the NBA.
Street culture started to evolve into streetwear around this time. Designers like Harlem Tailor Dapper Dan, and culture cocktail put together by the likes of Malcolm McClaren, Wild Style and Keith Haring all informed this new style of dress. The styling was a street- sports fusion of vintage, custom pieces from Canal Street, dougie gold chains, name belts, and of course, sneakers like the Ewing, the Super Star, Puma Clydes or the Jordan 1. Photographer Jamel Shabazz documented this era in such an authentic way, you can see the beginning of street style forming here with key silhouettes that would go on to become the design pillars of the early streetwear movement. Those influences; American workwear, classic vintage, sports iconography and of course, Hip Hop culture would go on to inform the Japanese Urahara movement and continue to inform design within streetwear culture today.
MTV was growing in popularity and hip hop artists and their album covers spread the message that sneakers were cool. Whether it was the Beastie Boys or Run DMC rocking superstars with leather or Kate Moss pairing them with a see through nightie on the red carpet a decade later, sneakers became gender neutral and part of our identity. They became accessible and aspirational at the same time. A vehicle for storytelling.
Like Walter Benjamin’s books, sneaker head’s “passion borders on the chaos of memories”. That anticipation, the desire of finding something special, the ritual of searching, the fetishism, still fuels the fire. In the beginning there was the hunt for dead stock, a treasure trove of dusty boxes with objects never worn that evolved into queuing up on the sidewalk in hopes that you wouldn’t be robbed before you got into the store to get your limited editions. This experience was essentially the very beginning of the “culture of the line”. Started in Tokyo’s Harajuko district and accelerated by the scarcity model and drop culture perfected by James Jebbia at Supreme over the last twenty years.
The last decade in street wear was fueled by the media, brands and influencer blogs which went on to create sneaker critics and celebrities who now advise brands and help amplify new products. Throughout all these permutations, sneakers remain aspirational, even unattainable for most. Much like the ‘lo life’ gang from the Bronx rocking their teddy bear sweaters who aspired to play polo and go yachting, the teddy bear found a new friend in Jeremy Scott’s now iconic hi tops which sold for $300 bucks at high end pinnacle retailers. Kanye West dropped the College Dropout and the Teddy Bear showed up again, whether that was a nod to the lo lifes and that subculture we’ll never know, but Kanye went on to change sneakers forever when he created Yeezy with his adidas team.
When Adidas launched super color with Pharrell Williams the brand was skeptical that 50 colors to show diversity would work. Breaking that color barrier again, Pharrell and our team fought hard to get this off the ground, it went on to be one of the most successful shoe launches in history, selling 600,000 pairs of kicks in one weekend.
Fandom and collectors continue to shape and mold the phenomenon of global sneaker communities. The evolution features a multibillion dollar aftermarket space that started with ebay and groomed Chinatown and Harlem entrepreneurs selling to 12 year olds from the Upper East Side. That club has become global, more mainstream and much more powerful. We have grey markets where sneakers are a commodity traded like pork bellies, Instagram sites dedicated solely to kicks and who is wearing them giving consumers a ‘reason to buy’. Sneakers have become an alternate asset class, an extension of our personalities; they define tribes, socio-economic status, taste, exclusivity, and hero worship.
Throughout this evolution, the Stan Smith remains, and endures as one of the most culturally relevant and worn sneakers in the world. In a few more years, it will likely be back front and hyped when a young, up and coming entertainer rocks it and Gen Alpha decides they want a piece of that.
