Historical History Of Sneakers

The world of sneakers, as we know it today, is extremely different from what it has been in its distant past. For most of us, the earliest version of a sneaker could be attributed to Converse’s classic Chuck Taylor All Star but a lot of people could be wrong.

In fact, the very first sneakers could be traced back in the 1800s. These, however, didn’t have the rubbery, gummy soles we have been accustomed to. Sneakers used to be a spiky footwear and they mostly came with a leather-made upper.

Commonly touted as “plimsolls,” the earliest form of sneakers used for sports was characterized for these spikes that caught hold of the ground perfectly for running. People in the same era didn’t have the same obsession with the footwear unlike what we

They were referred to as shoes of the people who were up to no good; hence, aptly calling it a shoe for those who loved to “sneak.” But it didn’t take long for the sneakers to maintain such bad perception.

In the wake of 1900s, sneakers became a casual footwear. If Thomas Goodyear found a way to make sneakers what it is now (by a process called vulcanization), it was the U.S. Rubber Company that introduced it to the public as a fashionable and comfortable footwear.

Keds is a brainchild of the U.S. Rubber Company that made canvas-over-rubber shoes a thing for everybody. For a moment, Keds has been the staple American shoe until its status was taken over by Converse.

From there, the history of celebrity-endorsed sneakers started and it initiated the billion-dollar-industry we know so far. Goodyear made sneakers into fruition, Keds introduced it to the public and for Converse’s part? It marketed sneakers from being a commodity to being a novelty.

Since then, we have been introduced to a whole new world of sneakers. Brands sprouted everywhere — from adidas to Onitsuka Tiger to Nike — and they revolutionized sneakers from one thing into

The tide changed when MySpace, AOL and Yahoo! Messenger and the likes became a thing for communication.

Since then, a cult of sneakerheads slowly (and unknowingly) began to mold themselves into such, until they have found each other in the wake of internet era. This set the fire ablaze for the sneaker hype, which is only getting stronger as years pass.

With the creation of a new subculture, a glossary of jargons have been created to suit the ever-growing passion of sneakerheads. In the early 2000s, the sneaker vocabulary started to flourish as much as people’s interest in it grew ardently.

Grail in the sneaker world would might be used differently in the common parlance, as sneakerheads use this to describe their most coveted sneakers. Kicks used to be an action but it developed into becoming another term for sneakers. Mind you, during the days these words have been starting to pick a new meaning, the sneaker culture has not yet reached the apex of