THE HISTORY OF SNEAKERS
PART 2
2023 APRIL ISSUE
INSPIRED BY | SNEAKERSBAR
NARRATED BY | IAJ
From the Desk of the Publisher | Andrew Sia
This is the part 2 of the writeup about the history of sneakers, This time we bring you to the modern time and tell you the births of the world renowned brands.
We have found that in this industry where the brands promoted the athletes in their sports arena and the athletes reciprocate and helped to promote the brands in the commercial world. In this way, they created a win-win situation.
And because that it generates big money and sometimes the success went through the heads of the athletes and unwise and sometimes even inappropriate remarks were made. It brought damages to both parties unrepairable which can be most regretful.
The latest example was Kayne West who lost his positions with Gap and Nike, but also the controversial he caused with his visit to Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago.
In the brief history of running shoes in the previous issue, we told you about the birth of running shoes and the process of its early development. At the same time, we also showed you the wonderful wrestling of major sports brands in the field of running shoes before the 21st century.
Among them, it is not difficult to find that during the time, Nike has clearly been a leader, far ahead of other competitors, and even led the development and reform of the entire running shoes and sports shoes market to a certain extent. So when the time comes to the 21st century, our running shoes story still starts with Nike.
Shortly after the time entered the second millennium, Nike launched a series of running shoes that caused a great sensation at the time, although this series looked a little out of place in the context of the current development trend of running shoes. It is the Nike Free series.
It is known that the determinant of Nike’s rapid development in the early days was not Nike’s founder Phil Knight, but the man behind him. That man – Bill Bowerman had set a main tone for the design of the entire Nike product: to bring people the best wearing experience with the simplest design. Deeply influenced by this concept is Tobie Hatfield, the designer of the Free series. Of course, due to his low-key personality and rarely appearing in front of the camera, few people know him, but his brother is more famous. He is the designer of the Air Jordan series and Air Max series Tinker Hartfield.
In the late 1990s, Nike launched a running shoe called Air Presto. The shoe tongue integrated sock design and the shoe cage design with a large area of TPU support on the upper brought a different wearing experience to the people at that time. At that time, some people even commented that this shoe was a “T-shirt specially designed for feet”, because the unrestrained feeling after wearing it was really comfortable, and the designer of this shoe was Toby Hatfield.
Years after the release of the Nike Air Presto, many people were asking Toby Hatfield: The Air Presto is so popular, why didn’t you launch a second generation? Tobie’s answer is: I have launched the second generation, its name is called – Nike Free.
In fact, in the process of designing running shoes, Toby has also been thinking about how to allow people to bend and stretch their feet freely after wearing shoes, without affecting the activities of the feet due to the addition of technology. It is the foundation of movement. In 2001, Toby and Nike designers observed the barefoot training of a college track and field team and analyzed the data of their training. With the support of these scientific data, Toby determined his design direction- – is to focus on the design of the sole, breaking the concept of traditional soles.
Later, he thought of ice cube trays and used this as inspiration to start designing the Free series. Finally, in 2004, Nike free 5.0 was officially released. After the release of this shoe, it was highly praised by many people, including the world sprint champion Allyson Felix (Allyson Felix). She herself has said many times that she I really like to wear the Free series training.
Although this series is usually known as the “barefoot series”, strictly speaking, the Free series is not a running shoe with zero slope difference. So far, the Free series should have launched a total of 4 versions, Free 3.0, 4.0, 5.0 and 7.0. The smaller the number, the smaller the slope difference of the midsole of the shoe, and the more barefoot feeling.
The slope difference of 3.0 is 4mm, the slope difference of 4.0 is 6mm, and the slope difference of 5.0 is 8mm of most running shoes on the market today.
In fact, during that time, this barefoot style or tried to reduce the restrictions on movement, and the products that promote natural movement are not only the Free series. Just two years after the launch of the Free series, the famous rubber brand Vibram launched the Fivefingers five-finger shoes, which once again set off a trend about barefoot sports, and this five-finger shoe was also featured by the American “Times” magazine a year later as one of the “Best Inventions of 2007”.
The emergence of another brand after many years can be said to bring this concept of barefoot or zero slope to the extreme, because all running shoes under this brand are zero slope, which is Altra established in 2009.
In the same year in France, a running shoe brand called HOKA ONEONE also appeared. The original intention of this brand is to create a running shoe that is more comfortable and safe for people during trail running. At the same time, because they launched running shoe midsole It is very thick, so the style of these running shoes is also a bit out of tune with the minimalist style that was popular at the time.
Although at the beginning of its establishment, HOKA ONEONE did not make much waves in the field of running shoes, but with the launch of Speedgoat, Bondi, Clifton and other series of running shoes after many years, they have gradually set off a series of running shoes in the field of running shoes. revolution.
At this time, we still want to go back to Nike. In the same year that Vibram launched the five-finger shoe, Nike also successfully attracted people’s attention with a shoe, because it is not so much that Nike launched a shoe, it is better to say It is a technology and a concept, and this technology is Nike+. With Nike+, you can synchronize your running shoes with your iPod and record your exercise data, such as exercise time, distance, calories burned, and more. Nike+ technology can be said to be the first time to truly combine sports equipment with electronic devices to make our movements more visible.
While Nike is making great strides along the way, its old rival adidas is not idle either. In 2001, Herbert Hainer officially became the new CEO of Adidas, and in 2005, four years after he took office, adidas sold Salomon to Amer Sports.
Amer Sports, a company that now owns ARC’TERYX, Wilson, Salomon and other brands, and everyone should be very familiar with it, because at the beginning of 2019, the Chinese sports brand Anta completed the project at a price of 4.6 billion euros for the acquisition of Amer Sports. In the second year after Adidas sold Salomon, they also completed the acquisition of the old sports brand Reebok, but it turned out that the combination of Adidas and Reebok was not really good.
When we look back on the first ten years of the 21st century, it is not difficult to find that many of the classic running shoe series we are familiar with have begun to start, and they are gradually being paid attention to by people. For example, Asics’ top cushioning running shoes Nimbus released the first generation in 1999, and ushered in the second generation after entering the millennium.
Asics Nimbus first generation works
Mizuno’s Wave Rider series of cushioning running shoes released the first-generation product in 1997, but in fact that shoe was not successful, and it did not attract much attention after its release. What really made the Wave Rider a hit was the second generation, released in 1998. The breathable engineered mesh surface and the redesigned parallel waves make this shoe look brand new, and it was also named “Editor’s Choice Award” by “Runner’s World” magazine that year.
We take Mizuno’s Wave Rider series for example for their cushioning running shoes released the first-generation product in 1997, at that time the shoe was not successful, and it did not attract much attention after its release. What really made the Wave Rider a hit was the second generation, released in 1998. The breathable engineered mesh surface and the redesigned parallel waves make this shoe look brand new, and it was also named “Editor’s Choice Award” by “Runner’s World” magazine that year.
Brooks Glycerin Series – First Generation in 2002
Brooks Adrenaline GTS 4
Brooks’ top-level cushioning running shoes, the Glycerin series, released its first-generation shoes in 2002 and didn’t catch the people’s attention. At the same year, it released the Adrenaline GTS 4 and it was chosen as the most important running shoes in Brooks history. The Adrenaline GTS 4 became the top choice and it featured Progressive Diagonal Rollbar technology for the first time, and it was using a triple-density midsole material. The shoes also won the “Best Updated Running Shoes of the Year” selected by “Runner World” and “Running Network”.
In 2006, Brooks launched a new midsole material – MoGo, which is improved on the basis of EVA, and has better cushioning and rebound than traditional EVA. The biggest feature of this material is also for its environmental protection.
In the second year, Brooks launched the BioMoGo midsole. In addition to upgrading the MoGo midsole in terms of performance, it is also the world’s first fully biodegradable midsole material. The concept of environmental protection that sports brands are advocating today, and Brooks has been the first to practice it as early as 15 years ago.
Although Brooks seemed to be doing well at this time, in fact, they had a difficult time in the 1990s. They have been changed hands several times and have been on the verge of bankruptcy. It was not until the early 2000s that Brooks found a new CEO: Jim Weber. Under his leadership, the company gradually got out of the financial distress. He first confirmed the company’s development direction: focusing on running.
In 2004, Brooks was acquired by American sports brand Russell Athletic. In 2006, Russell Sports was acquired by Fruit Of The Loom, the parent company of the underwear brand Berkshire Hathaway Corporation which is under Warren Buffett. Since then, Brooks has gradually become one of the top running shoe brands in the world.
Another brand, Saucony has a similar fate to Brooks. Saucony has also changed hands several times. Even for the Chinese market, it has also entered and exited several times. Until 2019, after Xtep won the distribution rights of Saucony in the Chinese market, the brand once again entered the Chinese market and began a period of rapid development in China. While Saucony changed hands several times, they have not delayed the launch of new running shoes. In 2009, Saucony launched the Kinvara “Essence” series, with a lightweight shoe body and a low slope of 4mm, which has been loved by many professional runners until now.
To talk about the running shoes that were the most popular among professional runners at that time, and even directly became synonymous with “speed”, we have to mention a series of running shoes, because to a certain extent, it directly opened up a series of running shoes that belonged to Its own marathon era, it is Adizero Adios. In fact, as early as 2004, Adidas had plans to design a professional running shoe that truly represents speed and can redefine speed, and this task fell on the shoulder of a famous Japanese designer who has been designing for Adidas since 1999.
On the eve of the Berlin Marathon in September, 2008, Ethiopian long-distance runner Haile Gebrselassie put on the prototype shoes of Adizero Adios for the first time. He decided that he would wear the Adizero Adios for the marathon the next day. On the second day of the Berlin Marathon, he won the championship with a time of 2:03:59 and broke the marathon world record at the time.
At the Berlin Marathon three years later, Patrick Makau wore the Adizero Adios 2 again with a time of 2:03:38 and improved Haile Gebrselassie s previous world record by another 21 seconds.
Two years later, in 2013, at the Berlin Marathon, Wilson Kipsang improved the marathon world record by another 15 seconds with a time of 2:03:23 wearing an Adizero Adios Boost.
The world record belonging to Adidas is not over yet, only one year later, Dennis Kimetto won the championship with a time of 2:02:57 wearing the Adizero Adios Boost 2 at the same venue, and put the first time in the human marathon. The result was brought within 2 hours and 3 minutes.
This world record has been maintained for four years, coupled with the earliest world record created by Heller Gebrselassie in 2008. It can be said that Adidas and its Adizero Adios series dominated the marathon for nearly ten years. Of course, at this time, we still need to stay in 2013, because in this year, an explosive midsole technology under Adidas appeared, although this kind of midsole technology seemed to us now that we have become accustomed to it. It does not seem to be there is nothing special, but at the time, its appearance was absolutely explosive, and its significance was no less than that of the air cushion in the Nike of the year. This midsole technology is Boost.
It was already n 1977, Brooks used EVA as the midsole material for running shoes for the first time. Since then, the running shoes of major sports brands have basically used this midsole material. Although the names are different, the proportion of other materials mixed in it may also be different, but the main body is still EVA. Until the appearance of Boost in 2013, people did not know what is called “supercritical foaming”, or “ETPU midsole”, and what is a soft and elastic foot feel. In 2015, the first generation of Ultra Boost was released in real, limited sales, coupled with the blessing of Kanye West’s upper foot, so that this shoe was in the limelight for a while, and the shoes was hard to find,
It can be said that during this period, Adidas’ running shoes have developed a multi-faceted approach in both racing and public fields, while the former overlord Nike is a little lonely. But in fact, Nike is accumulating strength, and this big move they released later completely changed the field of racing shoes. Although the Boost technology launched by Adidas directly brings the midsole foot feel of running shoes to a new height, the ETPU midsole still has the physical characteristics of “insufficient rebound and heavy weight”. So, is there a material that can be soft and elastic while remaining lightweight after supercritical foaming? Nike gave the best answer, which is the ZoomX midsole after Pebax foaming. In 2017, the shocking plan that everyone is familiar with happened, it is a Breaking 2.
Although this plan failed to “Break 2” in the end, the result of 2:00:25 was enough to shock the world, and what was even more shocking was that the shoes under the feet of Eliud Kipchoge were the same as those at that time. The simple style of the thin bottom is completely different. The design of the big thick bottom and the carbon fiber plate of the whole palm are also added. It can be said that people have never heard of it before and have never seen it before. It is this running shoe that is like an invention, which has completely changed the pattern of racing shoes. After that, major sports brands have also boarded this thick-soled carbon plate train.
In the 2018 Berlin Marathon, Kipchoge wore VaporFly Next% to break the marathon world record with a time of 2:01:39, and in a commercial challenge a year later, Kipchoge finally put human beings. The marathon result was brought within 2 hours.
Now this running shoe history review series is coming to an end. Of course, throughout the development process of the entire history of running shoes, we still have too many time nodes to take care of. For example, in addition to the midsole, major sports brands are also constantly making articles on the upper. In 2012, Nike launched Flyknit, a fabric-type yarn, which brought the wrapping and comfort of the upper to a new level on the basis of improving the support performance of the original upper.
Naturally, there are still many cases where you can leave your own footprints in the history of running shoes. We encourage you to take note and record them and we can one day enrich the history and share with our readers.
Interesting Video to share !
Youtube: FLASHLITE Running Shoes Collection by ANTA | Anta Malaysia | Oct, 9, 2019 | 1:05
With the density of 1/9 of paper, Anta’s FLASHLITE sole is able to support your whole body. Revolutionize your running experience with ANTA’S ultra light super comfortable FLASHLITE shoes.