A brief history of the shoes and moments that defined sneaker culture

TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images An amalgamation of rubber, nylon, and synthetics that we walk around in all day, sneakers shouldn’t occupy a special place in our hearts, but they do. For some, it’s about looking good while staying comfortable, but for others, it’s much more. “I couldn’t have it as a child,” said 21-year-old Avi Ibgui, whose parents emigrated from Israel in the ’90s and didn’t have the budget to purchase pricey items like stylish sneakers. Now a co-owner of high-end Los Angeles sneaker shop HypeLA on Ventura Boulevard, Ibgui is surrounded by these once unreachable fashion items, which he sells to young fashion-conscious college kids, nostalgic Gen Xers, and millennials searching for retro models, as well as celebrities like Ben Affleck and Robert Downey Jr. Sneakers are a cultural phenomenon. The sneaker market was worth $78.59 billion in 2021, and the industry is projected to grow to $128.34 billion by 2030, according to Grand View Research. The U.S. leads the world market for sneakers at $23.84 billion, followed by China at $18.89 billion, while the U.K. places a far third at only $4.9 billion, according to Statista. However, not every sneaker holds the kind of power and social significance to command the market. Elizabeth Semmelhack, who literally wrote the book on sneakers (three of them, to be exact) and is also the director and senior curator of the Bata Shoe Museum, told Stacker: “There are so many sneakers made, so many different types of sneakers, but not every sneaker made is valued the same.” With that in mind, Stacker took a deep dive into the storied histories of some of these game-changing shoes as told in tomes such as “Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture” by Semmelhack and “Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers” by Nicholas Smith, as well as interviews and internet research, to see which shoes have moved the needle and why the world continues to obsess over these sneaks. The early days: status symbols and sports NCJ/NCJ Archive/Mirrorpix via Getty Images Before sneakers became a must-have in every hypebeast’s closet, they were rubber-soled shoes made for a game of tennis. Around the industrial age, when newly-rich industrialists flaunted their wealth through leisure, they revived the ancient game, adopting the sport’s signature white clothing and rubber-soled shoes to boot, according to Semmelhack. The other theory is that croquet, which was popular around the 1860s, was responsible for the shoe’s increased adoption, according to Smith in his book “Kicks.” Either way, sneakers were unquestionably birthed as a status symbol. “Rubber itself was extremely expensive. It’s a sap of a tree you can only get a cup from every other day, and only grew in Brazil and certain parts of Central America,” Semmelhack said. “In the first half of the 19th century, a pair of rubber shoes cost over five times the cost of a good pair of leather shoes.” Later on, the prices of rubber would go down, and sports were bolstered by the idea that physical activity could address the ills of a society in the throes of industrial progress. As the number of people who played sports increased, so did sales for gear and footwear. It was basketball, however, and the Converse Rubber Company, that got the ball rolling in this direction when they hired Chuck Taylor, a basketball player with a knack for showmanship and sales, in 1921. Sneakers finds its first stars Bettmann // Getty Images Author Nicholas Smith titled his chapter on Chuck Taylor, “Johnny Basketballseed,” a clue to Taylor’s outsized effect on sneaker sales. Taylor, who had stints on pro teams by the time he was hired by Converse, was perhaps the first celebrity endorser of sneakers with a high-touch style. His traveling sales/free basketball clinics highlighting his ball-handling skills ended with a challenge to anyone who could stop him from dribbling past. Of course, as volunteers unsuccessfully tried, Taylor would often say, “That’s what the problem is. He doesn’t have Converse All Stars on.” Converse debuted the All Stars line in 1917 with a high top, a cushioned insole, and a diamond tread pattern. Its now-familiar ankle patch wasn’t just an aesthetic decision but a practical one–it added protection for inner ankles. Alongside selling All Stars, Taylor was also behind the Converse Basketball Yearbook, which included articles, strategies, and even team photos with players wearing Converse shoes. It was an unrivaled piece of marketing, which became keepsakes for those featured on its pages. Taylor’s effect on Converse was so prominent his name was added to the brand in 1934, along with his signature on the ankle patch, forever cementing these shoes as “Chucks.” That same year, Canadian badminton player Jack Purcell would also get his signature shoe, thanks to the B.F. Goodrich Company. Footwear deals with racial politics Austrian Archives/Imagno // Getty Images Sneakers weren’t just big business on basketball courts. They made a statement on a global scale. At the 1936 Summer Olympics, also referred to as the Nazi Olympics, Black athlete Jesse Owens, who had already broken sprinting and long-jumping records the year prior, wowed the crowds. He handily won the 200-meter dash in 20.7 seconds, a world record. Four days later, he would again win gold and set a world record, this time as the lead in a 4 x 100-meter relay. His performance stood in stark contrast to Hitler’s Aryan supremacy message. On Owens’ feet? Black track spikes with two distinct black leather stripes on the side made by Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik. A fallout between the founding brothers of the company would birth Adidas and Puma, two brands that continued to compete for athletes’ footwear of choice in global sports events such as the World Cup and the Olympics for decades to come. It wouldn’t be the last time sneakers became part of a political statement. During the 1968 Olympics in Mexico, sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos wore black gloves and raised their fists as they received their respective gold and bronze medals. A single black Puma sneaker was placed beside each of them. The two used the moment to protest racial inequality and civil rights and created one of the most enduring sports images of the 20th century, according to sports sociologist Harry Edwards. Nike: A new shoe empire starts in Japan Kirby Lee/WireImage // Getty Images After World War II, Japan was in shambles, providing entrepreneurs like Kihachiro Onitsuka an opportunity to build a market from the ground up. At the time, American GIs were popularizing basketball in the Land of the Rising Sun. Hoping to capitalize on this momentum, Onitsuka would design a grippier shoe for a market dealing with post-war supply issues. Inspired by the suction cups of an octopus’s tentacles, he designed the Onitsuka Tiger 1950 OK basketball shoes. (The “OK” from his initials.) While it made strides in basketball, the company found that running was a larger market. By 1962, its most successful shoe was made for running. These were the shoes eventually distributed by Blue Ribbon Sports, now known as Nike, founded by Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman. A passionate shoe designer, Bowerman would often influence Onitsuka’s shoe designs by mailing suggestions–one of which was a mashup of two Tiger models with an added arch for flat feet–to Japan. Onitsuka initially named the model the Aztec to honor the upcoming 1968 Olympics in Mexico but later rechristened it to Cortez, the Spaniard who would topple the Aztec empire. The model sold well under the Tiger brand but would go on to become a classic sold under the Nike brand after it won a lawsuit against Onitsuka. The Swoosh’s big breaks