Contemporary Authors

• Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers Crown (New York, NY), 2018

• Nicholas K. SMith - http://www.nicholasksmith.com/

  About
  Picture
  Nicholas K. Smith is the author of the book "Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers." His work has appeared in Time, Esquire, GlobalPost, the Vienna Review and in the Tucson Weekly, among others. He has worked at The Earth Institute at Columbia University as a research assistant for the science news site GlacierHub.org.

  He has won numerous journalism awards including the first place in the community reporting category from the Arizona Press Club and contributed to the Tucson Weekly’s first place award for best blog initiative from the Suburban Newspaper Association. Nicholas is also a 2014 Lynton Book Writing Fellow from Columbia University.

  He currently lives in Vienna, Austria and is a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School with a masters of science degree in journalism. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Arizona.

  Twitter: @nicholasksmith
  Email: nicholas [dot] k [dot] smith [at] gmail [dot] com

  ​

• Wisconsin Public Radio - https://www.wpr.org/people/nicholas-smith-0

  Listen Live
  The Ideas Network
  Program Schedule
  Program Notes
  NPR News & Classical Network
  Program Schedule
  Music Playlists
  All Classical Network
  Program Schedule
  Music Playlists

  Thank you! Together we make great radio.

  Janan, a listener from Mequon
  Nicholas Smith
  Writer, Journalist
  Nicholas Smith

  Nicholas K. Smith is the author of the book "Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers." His work has appeared in Time, Esquire, GlobalPost, the Vienna Review and in the Tucson Weekly, among others. He has worked at The Earth Institute at Columbia University as a research assistant for the science news site GlacierHub.org.

  He has won numerous journalism awards including the first place in the community reporting category from the Arizona Press Club and contributed to the Tucson Weekly’s first place award for best blog initiative from the Suburban Newspaper Association. Nicholas is also a 2014 Lynton Book Writing Fellow from Columbia University.

  He currently lives in Vienna, Austria and is a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School with a masters of science degree in journalism. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Arizona.

  Twitter: @nicholasksmith
  Email: nicholas [dot] k [dot] smith [at] gmail [dot] com

  SOURCE: http://www.nicholasksmith.com/
  Related Websites:
  Nicholas K. Smith
  Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers
  Image of Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers
  Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers
  Author: Nicholas Smith
  Publisher: Crown (2018)
  Binding: Hardcover, 320 pages
  Biographical information last updated on July 17, 2018 - 1:51pm
  Featured In
  BETA Sat, 07/21/2018 - 11:00am
  Episode 110: Live from New York, It's Sneakers and Video Games

  Sponsored by:

  Sponsored by:

  Subscribe To WPR Newsletters
  Keep updated on the latest news and information. Sign up now!

  Morning Top Headlines
  Afternoon Top Headlines

  Email Address (required)

  See the archives

  Wisconsin Public Radio

QUOTED: "Readers ... will be fascinated by Smith's exciting, informative, and multifaceted narrative."

Kicks: The Great American Story of
Sneakers
Raymond Pun
Booklist.
114.15 (Apr. 1, 2018): p38. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers. By Nicholas Smith. May 2018.320p. Crown, $26 (9780451498113). 685.31.
Journalist Smith, a contributor to Esquire and Tucson Weekly, expounds on the sneaker as a cultural, economic, and political symbol in modern history. Tracing the journey and evolution of the sneaker with a multidisciplinary approach that encompasses sports, business, and fashion, Smith illustrates how the sneaker rose to its sensational commodity status today. He covers familiar brands and stars-Nike, Adidas, Michael Jordan--and writes in detail about the business practices and subcultures that revolve around the product. No background (or interest, even) in footwear is required to enjoy this entertaining read. Smith's extensive and eclectic research calls on podcasts, Sports Illustrated archives, and interviews with key players. Readers of sports history, popular culture, and business will be fascinated by Smith's exciting, informative, and multifaceted narrative of the major roles the sneaker has played in U.S. branding, perceptions, and culture.--Raymond Pun
YA: Teen sneakerheads will get a kick out this. SH.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Pun, Raymond. "Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers." Booklist, 1 Apr. 2018, p. 38.
Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A534956811 /GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=5b7e364a. Accessed 30 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A534956811
2 of 2 9/30/18, 8:30 PM

• ESPN
  http://www.espn.com/espnw/culture/article/23368322/great-american-story-sneakers
  Word count: 1065

  QUOTED: "I hope they find that the history of sneakers taps into something that is universal in our culture. ... What makes Cinderella a princess? It's the glass slipper. What makes Dorothy come back from Oz? It's the magical ruby shoes. We are almost conditioned to believe that there is something magical with shoes and when we wear them, we gain some of this power. I'll testify that after seeing the Mike and Mars commercials as a kid, I wanted those Jordan shoes because I believed they would somehow make me jump higher."

  Nicholas Smith on his new book 'KICKS: The Great American Story of Sneakers'

  By Russella L. Davis-Rogers | May 1, 2018
  Special espnW
  In the 1980s, Reebok noticed the aerobic shoes they were making for exercise classes were also fairly comfortable and people liked wearing them outside of sporting activities, Nicholas Smith says, in his new book, Kicks.
  Courtesy of Reebok

  In the 1980s, Reebok noticed the aerobic shoes they were making for exercise classes were also fairly comfortable and people liked wearing them outside of sporting activities, Nicholas Smith says, in his new book, "Kicks."

  Nicholas Smith's new book, "KICKS: The Great American Story of Sneakers," which is out Tuesday, examines the creation and evolution of sneakers. In the book, Smith highlights how sneakers continue to be at the center of America's ongoing relationship with shoes. He also explores the cultural, societal and fashion influences that have shaped the industry.

  espnW spoke with Smith to discuss the shoe brand that ignored the "fitness boom" among women, and the roles of classism and sexism in the shoe industry.

  This interview has been edited for length.

  espnW: In the book you touched on the role of classism in the types of shoes worn by women, specifically highlighting a scene from the 1988 film "Working Girl." Do you think this is something that continues to persist or is it less prevalent?

  Nicholas Smith: It's a bit of both. At the time of "Working Girl," there was more of a difference in class between shoes if you showed up at the office in heels versus if you showed up in the office wearing sneakers, changing into heels once you got to work. This has flattened now. With the boom of athleisure, it is completely normal to see women walking around in sneakers in and out of the office. You cannot really tell as much as you could from someone's shoes as you could in the 1980s.

  More from espnW.com

  Florence Griffith Joyner celebrates her 100-meter win during the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul.
  A writer explores her connection to Flo-Jo

  Nafessa Williams on playing Thunder in 'Black Lightning'

  Costume designer Ruth E. Carter on 'Black Panther'

  espnW: You also mentioned other key shoe moments for women, like when Nike ignored the "fitness boom" even as the aerobics era was emerging, and actress Jane Fonda and others were opening exercise studios. Why do you think Nike refused to acknowledge that there might be a market for women seeking comfortable, reliable athletic shoes?

  Smith: Let's go back to the 1980s. Nike was the top shoemaker in the country. They tended to view people that watched the Jane Fonda exercise fitness tapes and went to aerobics class not as real athletes. Reebok saw this and started making their freestyle aerobics shoe and they exploded in popularity. In a short amount of years, Reebok overtook Nike.

  Another thing Reebok stumbled upon during that time was discovering the aerobic shoes they were making for exercise classes were also fairly comfortable and people liked wearing them outside of sporting activities. This is one of these moments where sneakers kind of moved from sports to fashion.
  KICKS, Nicholas Smith's new book, was released Tuesday.
  Courtesy of author Nicholas Smith

  "KICKS," Nicholas Smith's new book, was released Tuesday.

  espnW: Is there an element of sexism or classism you wanted to cover in this book but were unable to tackle?

  Smith: One of the areas I wanted to probe a bit deeper was when Nike came out with a signature line of shoes for WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes. These were kind of like the women's versions of the Air Jordan's. I think they went through five or maybe six different iterations. I really wanted to find out why it kind of fizzled; what were some of the reasons and factors why we never really saw a successor to the Sheryl Swoopes shoe. This could possibly be a sequel.

  espnW: In the movie "Black Panther," Princess Shuri, T'Challa's sister, jokingly refers to the new shoes she has created for T'Challa as sneakers. Do you see girls and women emerging as creators in athletic gear and apparel?

  Smith: We certainly see a lot of this. There are many female sneaker designers. In fact, the designer behind the self-lacing Nike EARL shoe is Tiffany Beers. This is something that took a very long time to cook up in the lab. If we tie it back to a movie, that idea came from "Back to the Future II" and the character Marty McFly. In the years to come, we can see shoes inspired by the "Black Panther" movie, too.

  espnW: What do you hope, at a minimum, that your readers walk away with from this book?

  Smith: I hope they find that the history of sneakers taps into something that is universal in our culture. I'll give you an example. What makes Cinderella a princess? It's the glass slipper. What makes Dorothy come back from Oz? It's the magical ruby shoes. We are almost conditioned to believe that there is something magical with shoes and when we wear them, we gain some of this power. I'll testify that after seeing the Mike and Mars commercials as a kid, I wanted those Jordan shoes because I believed they would somehow make me jump higher.

  Russella L. Davis-Rogers lives in Washington, D.C. She holds a M.L.A. from Johns Hopkins University, where she studied African-American studies, ethics and government, and a B.B.A. in marketing from Howard University.

• Oregon Live
  https://www.oregonlive.com/books/index.ssf/2018/05/kicks_nicholas_smith.html
  Word count: 1095

  QUOTED: "Kicks” will appeal to more than devout sneakerheads. ... It’s a work of synthesis rather than substantial original reporting, but Smith is a skilled curator. He situates sneakers at the intersection of celebrity culture, the personal fitness movement, even globalization. ... He also exhumes fascinating detail."

  'Kicks' gives us a lively, engaging history of the sneaker (book review)
  Posted May 01, 2018 at 05:00 AM | Updated May 09, 2018 at 08:53 AM
  Comment
  Nicholas Smith.Kicks.jpg

  (Photo of author Nicholas Smith by Valentin Berger)
  By Stephen Phillips | For The Oregonian/OregonLive

  The humble sneaker. Chances are, you own one or more pairs, wear them weekly if not daily, and buy new ones at least every other year.

  Except the humble sneaker is not so humble. Nicholas Smith’s “Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers” (Crown, 320 pages, $26) is a lively, engaging cultural history of a uniquely functional yet fetishized object — commodity footwear and consumer durable but also personal style statement, athletic talisman and coveted object of desire. Smith’s tale teems with freebooting DIY tinkerers, traverses the sociocultural trend lines of our time and runs smack dab through Portland.
  (c) adidas Group (photographer: Hannah Hlavacek)

  In 2017, Adidas, whose North American headquarters is in Portland, developed the Adizero to aid marathon runners in an attempt to break the two-hour mark. (Hannah Hlavacek/Adidas AG)

  He opens his account with the 1844 invention of vulcanization — the application of sulfur, white lead and high heat to rubber so it doesn’t wilt in sultry weather. Soon after came the rise of leisure among those toiling in the industrial revolution — holidays bought factories time to retool — and its concomitant: sports as a pastime and spectacle.

  The masses now had disposable income and time, and the 19th century saw the codification of soccer, basketball, tennis and other sports, begetting a market for specialist shoes. Basketball, in particular, fueled the sneaker’s rise, thanks to Chuck Taylor, early hoops master and super-salesman for his eponymous Converses.

  Other manufacturers got their start through the Olympics, reprised from ancient Greece in 1896. The 1936 Berlin Games might have been a ghoulish showcase for Hitler, but they also spotlighted Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik, a firm founded by two squabbling brothers that shoed not only German Olympians but also quadruple-gold medalist and party pooper Jesse Owens. The Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik shoes bore “two dark leather stripes,” writes Smith, but it would be with a third that Adi Dassler vaulted to global renown as founder in 1948 of Adidas. Brother Rudi split off to form Puma, their feud fueling a rancorous rivalry.
  Kicks book review 1.JPG

  University of Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman building his own shoes for his athletes. With Phil Knight, one of his former runners, he cofounded Nike. (Nike)

  Among Adidas’ early U.S. customers was storied University of Oregon track and field coach Bill Bowerman, a compulsive experimenter constantly on the prowl for an edge for his athletes. A centerpiece of these efforts: their shoes, which Bowerman deconstructed and refashioned. One of his subjects was Portlander Phil Knight, later author, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, of a paper asking, “Can Japanese Sports Shoes Do to German Sports Shoes What Japanese Cameras Did to German Cameras?” On graduating, Knight put his proposition to the test as a distributor for Japan’s Onitsuka Tiger. It didn’t challenge Adidas but it proved, amid the late-1960s jogging boom, that the sneaker market could support other players. And it spawned a venture that would challenge Adidas.

  Unable to secure enough Tigers to meet U.S. demand, Knight founded Nike to sell his own sneakers. Bowerman’s design innovations — not least, the grippy “waffle sole” — were crucial to Nike’s early success, but with its “swoosh” logo and edgy Wieden+Kennedy-produced ads, Nike was no less innovative in branding and marketing. Also key to its success: endorsement from stars like Michael Jordan.
  Kicks book review 2.JPG

  Designer Jeffrey Ng, aka jeffstaple, holds a pair of his Nike x Staple Design Dunk Low Pro SB Pigeon, which nearly caused a riot upon its release in 2005. The shoe now sells for several thousand dollars on the secondary market. (Dale Algo/@daleknows)

  Basking in the reflected glory of celebrity pitchmen, sneakers crossed over into streetwear. Here, their wearers exhibited the same DIY ethos as their creators — 1970s New York teens primped their laces for a “fat” look. 1980s hip-hop artists embraced sneakers as an emblem of personal identity and aesthetic sensibility as serenaded by the Run DMC anthem “My Adidas.”

  This cultural currency prefigured today’s “sneakerheads,” collectors willing to drop thousands on small-batch designer models.

  “Kicks” will appeal to more than devout sneakerheads, though.

  It’s a work of synthesis rather than substantial original reporting, but Smith is a skilled curator. He situates sneakers at the intersection of celebrity culture, the personal fitness movement, even globalization (describing the black eye Nike sustained in the 1990s following revelations about conditions in the Asian factories that then fabricated its sneakers).
  Game Changers

  In "Kicks," author Nicholas Smith writes that before Tommie Smith (center) and John Carlos received their 1968 Olympic medals, they took off their sneakers and wore only black socks to represent black poverty. (Associated Press/1968)

  He also exhumes fascinating detail.

  Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ single-fisted protest of racism on the rostrum at the 1968 Olympics is an iconic 20th-century image. But Smith points out that earlier their other hands had held sneakers; they’d padded to the ceremony “in black socks without shoes to represent black poverty.”

  And he reveals the subtext behind an odd moment before the 1970 World Cup Final when Pele lingered over tying his laces: The Brazilian maestro was showing the world his sponsored Puma cleats.

  “History is full of the outsized effects of seemingly minor events,” writes Smith. His history of sneakers is replete with them. It’s enough to make you ponder counter-factuals, like what if Phil Knight had gone with his initial choice of name for his new sneaker company? “Dimension Six” doesn’t quite have the same ring.

  Triathlete Sarah Reinretten runs in an Issue Flex-Run prosthetic with a Nike Sole attachment. Advances in technology and design have pushed athletic footwear far beyond its humble origins in the mid-1800s. (Courtesy of Ossur Inc.)

• Shelf Awareness
  https://shelf-awareness.com/readers-issue.html?issue=716#m12563
  Word count: 325

  QUOTED: "An offbeat history of the athletic shoe world with cameo biographies of those who built it, Kicks is a sneakerhead's dream."

  Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers
  by Nicholas Smith

  Before we were defined by our Converse Chucks, Adidas Stans, Puma Clydes and Nike Jordans, canvas-and-rubber shoes were the footwear of choice for British croquet ladies and were called Plimsolls. After rubber entrepreneur Charles Goodyear developed vulcanizing in 1844, to prevent soles from melting in the summer heat, cheap waterproof "sneakers" began their ascent from kids' PE shoes to their arrival on NBA hardwood, Fashion Week runways and the BET Hip-Hop Award stage.

  In Kicks, journalist Nicholas Smith recounts the eclectic history of this ubiquitous slice of Americana. Sneakers may have made their first sport appearance on croquet lawns, but their widespread adoption followed the rise of competitive games like tennis, basketball, track and field, and long-distance running. Smith credits the Converse Rubber Shoe Company with the marketing breakthrough of celebrity endorsement when it put its former basketball player and salesman Chuck Taylor's name on its shoe and sent him on the road pitching his kicks--what Smith calls "playing Johnny Basketballseed."

  After the success of Converse Chucks, no shoe could capture market share without some kind of star power seal of approval. The big brands courted sports hotshots like Michael Jordan, championship teams like the 1954 West German World Cup winner, underground heroes like skateboarding's Dogtown Z-boys and music luminaries like Run-DMC. Smith runs down many tangents of this $18 billion market and the frequent ups and downs of its global players. An offbeat history of the athletic shoe world with cameo biographies of those who built it, Kicks is a sneakerhead's dream. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

  Discover: From 19th-century croquet shoes to 21st-century fashion, Kicks is the fascinating history of the business, marketing and culture of sneakers.

• Wall Street Journal
  https://www.wsj.com/articles/kicks-review-its-gotta-be-the-shoes-1529622471
  Word count: 1076

  QUOTED: "Kicks serves as a comprehensive look at how much the sneaker became a signature indicator of cool, from Chuck Taylor and his Converse All-Stars to Clyde Frazier’s Pumas to Run-DMC and their Adidas to, of course, Michael Jordan."

  ‘Kicks’ Review: It’s Gotta Be the Shoes
  Companies that manufacture sneakers have become power brokers—economic forces larger than the sports they are there to support. Will Leitch reviews “Kicks” by Nicholas Smith.
  Adidas founder Adolf Dassler.
  Adidas founder Adolf Dassler. Photo: Brauner/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
  7 Comments
  By Will Leitch
  June 21, 2018 7:07 p.m. ET

  The world of college basketball exploded in scandal during the past season, when the FBI announced its investigation into fraud and corruption among coaches and universities who allegedly helped secure payments for amateur athletes from Adidas and other sportswear manufacturers. In the aftermath of these revelations, a common refrain heard was that something needed to be done about the power of these shoe companies over supposedly amateur athletes. These corporations, after all, were serving as power brokers, funneling money through college coaches (basically middlemen in this scenario) to high school players and their families, who were promised future endorsement opportunities.

  But how did shoe companies get so much power in the first place? How on earth have people who make freaking footwear apparently managed to reduce athletic powerhouses like USC and Louisville to the role of glorified money launderers? It all comes down to the outsize importance of sneakers in popular culture.

  In his expansive, thorough and entertaining book “Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers,” author Nicholas Smith traces the history of this $20 billion industry, arguing that the power and allure of the shoe have shaped American business and fashion for decades. Mr. Smith notes that shoe companies have long been interested in the main chance: The founder of Adidas provided shoes both to Nazi athletes at the 1936 Berlin Olympics and to America’s great track star Jesse Owens. But ever since Nike exploded because a track coach started looking funny at his wife’s waffle maker, athletic shoes have been stylistic innovators. Their manufacturers have thus become economic forces larger than the sports they’re supposedly there to support. In many ways, to hear Mr. Smith tell it, the shoes have been wearing us.

  “Kicks” serves as a comprehensive look at how much the sneaker became a signature indicator of cool, from Chuck Taylor and his Converse All-Stars to Clyde Frazier’s Pumas to Run-DMC and their Adidas to, of course, Michael Jordan. The Chicago Bulls great teamed with Spike Lee at exactly the right moment toward the beginning of each of their careers, launching Nike into the stratosphere with the simple phrase: “It’s gotta be the shoes.”
  ‘Kicks’ Review: It’s Gotta Be the Shoes
  Photo: WSJ
  Kicks

  By Nicholas Smith
  Crown, 308 pages, $26

  By the time Mr. Jordan retired, he was as closely connected to the Nike swoosh logo as he was to the Bulls logo . . . probably more so. Today his Jordan Brand is a subsidiary of Nike, and when it released a pair of green-and-orange sneakers celebrating the Gatorade slogan “Be Like Mike,” the message was clear: You no longer need to ask who Mike is, or what being like Mike might mean, or what might be required to instigate such a transformation. You just need to buy those Air Jordans.

  Mr. Smith certainly doesn’t provide the shoe-makers a pass for their business tactics. The controversies over sweatshop conditions in some of Nike’s factories, for instance, are hardly given short shrift. But for the most part, the author tracks (if you’ll forgive the pun) the industry’s history in a breezy, light way that owes more to fun historical anecdotes than to hard data, but benefits all the more from the approach. Mr. Smith himself is a “sneakerhead”—the term for those who obsess over sneaker minutiae and treat the release of a new basketball shoe the way I used to treat a Nirvana album—lining up at midnight the night before it goes on sale.

  The most engaging parts of his book are those where he leans into that obsession, particularly with the book’s conclusion, which chronicles modern-day sneakerhead culture. A memorable indication of the role that shoes play in today’s popular imagination, he suggests, took place when Kanye West broke with Nike, in part over a disagreement about royalties from his line of Yeezy apparel. This business disagreement became such a big story that West fans started shouting obscenities about the shoe company (and Mr. Jordan) in the middle of his concerts. As the book notes, Kanye, ever wise to his market, put a stop to that. “Showing respect to the ultimate pitchman,” Mr. Smith writes, “was something that crossed the lines of brand loyalty.”

  Today, the author suggests, sneakers have essentially replaced music as the go-to investment for companies looking at getting into the youth market. They have become so popular that most manufacturers make limited-edition shoes that exist solely to become valuable and are almost never worn. The shoes aren’t for wearing; they’re simply for having.

  As for that college-basketball scandal? No one can claim it was a shining hour for the shoe companies, but let me offer a word of defense: At least they were looking out for the players. Yes, executives at companies like Adidas had their own well-being and their own bottom line in mind: They view young players as investments. But so does everybody else. Colleges make millions of dollars a year, and much of it comes from shoe companies who pay to put amateur athletes in their gear. But that money never makes it to the players out on the court.

  At the end of the day, it seems, a few shady shoe guys were the only people willing to give any compensation at all to the players and their families. Shoe companies might not be the sports overlords we need, but they’re certainly the ones we deserve.

  Mr. Leitch is a national correspondent for MLB.com, contributing editor at New York magazine, contributor to Sports Illustrated and the founder of Deadspin.
  https://www.wsj.com/articles/kicks-review-its-gotta-be-the-shoes-1529622471

• All Sports Books
  https://allsportsbooks.reviews/2018/06/11/kicks/
  Word count: 660

  QUOTED: "Overall, it is a very interesting dive into the world of American sports shoes that becomes more interesting as you keep reading. While the book could easily have become a boring repetition of facts, Smith’s writing style keeps it light and entertaining."

  ‘Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers’ by Nicholas Smith (2018)
  allsportsbookreviews Business of Sport, Uncategorized June 11, 2018 2 Minutes

  While I’m no ‘sneakerhead’ and have appalling fashion sense, runners are the one item of clothing that I can actually enjoy shopping for. I’m also the kind of guy who wears black Asics walking to work and doesn’t bother putting on suit shoes unless a meeting is very important so my views on anything shoes or fashion related should probably be ignored. Kicks

  I had to ask myself if Kicks qualified as a sports book but given the heavy focus on the history of sport and sports companies, it definitely does. Kicks traces the story of how sneakers (the American term for runners, trainers, sports shoes or tackies) were first developed and grew from being a sports specific shoe to the ever-present default footwear choice of billions.

  In telling the story, Smith traces the origins of numerous sports and even more sport shoe companies. In particular he captures the rivalries that drove advances in technology and marketing as the sneaker business crossed over from sports wear to mainstream everyday wear. From Converse v Keds, Addidas v Puma to Nike v Reebok, the battle to be number led to some much innovation and change in an ever growing market. Each company would at some hit a gold mine – whether the Converse All-Star, the Reebok athletic shoe or Nike Air Jordan – before losing the lead as a competitor signed the next big name or launched the next must have shoe.

  The book weaves together a lot of stories I already knew or was vaguely aware of. I was surprised by how much of the source material I had read including Kenny Moore’s book on Bill Bowerman and the Men of Oregon, Phil Knight’s autobiography Shoe Dog (about Nike) and Pitch Invasion by Barbara Smit on the founding of Adidas and Puma.

  airjordan

  It also touches on the role non-sport elements popular culture, in particular Run DMC’s promoting of Adidas which landed them a $1 million endorsement deal, had on the marketing of sneakers. Finally, it talks about sneakerhead culture and the fan culture that the internet has enabled resulting in shoes selling for thousands online and sneaker theft becoming a worrying source of crime in US inner-cities. While it seems crazy to think of someone buying shoes they will likely never wear, I’m writing this looking at my library of 100’s of books I’m yet to read while I buy way more new books every year than I read. I guess we all have a passion and for some people that passion is sneakers.

  Overall it is a very interesting dive into the world of American sports shoes that becomes more interesting as you keep reading. While the book could easily have become a boring repetition of facts, Smith’s writing style keeps it light and entertaining.

  sneaker-shopping-addiction-000

  Tagged
  Basketball
  Business of Sport
  Converse
  Nike
  Puma
  Reebok
  Sneakers

  Published by allsportsbookreviews

  A lover of sports books. This site is my blog of reviews of classic and contemporary sports books that I have read and am reading. View all posts by allsportsbookreviews
  Published
  June 11, 2018
  Post navigation
  Previous Post ‘The Soul of Basketball: The Epic Showdown Between LeBron, Kobe, Doc, and Dirk That Saved the NBA’ by Ian Thomsen (2018)
  Next Post ‘Garrincha: the triumph and tragedy of Brazilian’s forgotten footballing hero’ by Ruy Castro & translated by

• Kirkus Reviews Online
  https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/nicholas-smith/kicks-smith/
  Word count: 388

  QUOTED: "a cornucopia of factoids and fun asides bursting with a wealth of in-depth information on every aspect of sneakers, from their birth to their current and continuing explosive popularity."

  Email this review
  KIRKUS REVIEW
  In his first book, journalist Smith follows his fascination, sprinting through the evolution of the planet’s hippest, most popular footwear, a history that goes way beyond sports and into the streets of the youth culture.

  The tale begins with inventor Charles Goodyear, whose innovations and patents on rubber laid the basis for all things sneaker to come. Combine these innovations with a demand for sports footwear, and an industry was born. From the expansion of soccer and rugby, men’s and women’s tennis, the rebirth of the Olympic games, and the 1891 invention of basketball, the turn-of-the-20th-century sports explosion created an increasing proliferation of athletes—along with thousands of feet needing protection. As the author demonstrates, with the professionalization of sports through the coming decades and events like the 1960s creation of jogging as a pastime, the demand for sneakers continued to grow—and it hasn’t lost any momentum in the new millennium. The demand for sneakers today often boils down to status (“some people will wait in line for days to get kicks no one else has”) rather than utility, and Smith details how ingenious media campaigns such as Spike Lee’s Mars Blackmon/Michael Jordan ads spawned an all-new fashion boom beginning in 1988, with Nike selling millions of pairs of Air Jordan sneakers for their creative efforts. Today, with sneakers dominating the streets on the feet of the youth, the author explains that this universal footwear has become the latest symbol of globalization. With that symbolism, new controversies abound. Aside from sneaker manufacturers still battling to overcome stigmas of sweatshop conditions and poverty wages, they walk a fine line in marketing their wares as the popularity of gangster fashion grows in the street culture.

  A cornucopia of factoids and fun asides bursting with a wealth of in-depth information on every aspect of sneakers, from their birth to their current and continuing explosive popularity.

  Pub Date: May 1st, 2018
  ISBN: 978-0-451-49811-3
  Page count: 320pp
  Publisher: Crown
  Review Posted Online: March 24th, 2018