Whenever the forecast calls for rain, Monica Downing knows she will not put on her galaxy-themed Converse sneakers; their paint would not hold up against the rain.
Downing, a sophomore studying business economics, owns 27 pairs of Converse tennis shoes.
“They’re the best type of shoe there is, quite honestly,” she said. “You can wear them for anything. You can dress them up, dress them down, wear them to gym class.”
As the fad of athleisure wear — otherwise known as workout attire worn for everyday dress — sweeps over stock shelves, so does the influence of athletic footwear. With an influx of casual clothing, students are collecting sneakers as a hobby rather than just wearing them for exercise.
Evolution of fashionable footwear
In the past few decades, sneakers have evolved from having a reputation as street shoes to being incorporated into high-end fashion, according to a report published by CNN in 2015.
Sneakers entered mainstream society in the ’50s with the youth movement, when young adults began to challenge society, Trina Gannon, an adjunct instructor at OU with degrees in clothing and retail with a focus on history and anthropology, said. The movement sparked an interest in younger generations and played into James Dean’s character, Jim Stark, in Rebel Without a Cause, whose style was jeans, sneakers and a white T-shirt.
“Sneakers were seen as your dirty shoe,” Gannon said. “You (did not) wear them to church, or you (were not) supposed to.”
As sneakers became more prevalent in mainstream society, the style became a trademark of an everyday outfit.
“It’s part of our society,” Gannon said. “It’s kind of like a little black dress; you can’t go wrong with a T-shirt, jeans and sneakers.”
While Converse shoes are not exactly at the forefront of the athletic attire movement today, Nike — which owns Converse – is.
Nike has come a long way since it was founded in 1964 under the name “Blue Ribbon Sports,” and officially became Nike Inc. in 1971. Since the ’70s, the company has become the largest supplier and manufacturer of athletic shoes and apparel in the world, according to a 2016 Nike report on Statista. The company brings in about $32 billion in revenue worldwide.
“At one point, (Nike) kind of became America’s coach, then they became this worldwide sportswear leader,” Daniel Dahlen, director of the Center for Consumer Research and a professor of marketing at Ohio University, said. “They’re the biggest, the best, the first.”
Appealing factors
Although a sneaker craze has been present for more than 60 years, the 2000s brought about a different dynamic to sneakers. It was not enough for the shoes to just be comfortable — they have to look captivating.
Companies like Nike have the ability to reach a multitude of people, from children to older adults and everyone in between. Dahlen, an OU alumnus, has spent most of his career in advertising and said Nike is able to do that partially due to its “state-of-the-art” marketing.
“Their advertising, when you see it, it stops you. … It ideally causes you to grow closer to the brand, and the next time you want to buy a pair of sneakers … you’re going to give Nike some consideration,” Dahlen said.
Many college students and professors alike have fixated on the shoes as more of a collector’s hobby, though, following the craze of fashionable footwear.
The main draws are color and design. It is already assumed that sneakers are comfortable shoes, so it is all of the other components that set a stylish pair of sneakers apart from a pair that does not incorporate an appealing style, Gannon said.
Max Herron, an undecided sophomore and the owner of about 20 pairs of sneakers, said he has dwindled down his collection since last year, but the sneakers he still owns are all color-heavy.
Within the sneaker culture, red is a popular color. Kanye West's “Red October” Nike Air Yeezy 2 sneakers reinforced the all-red color scheme for such shoes, Herron said.
But not everyone is convinced that flashy colors and top-of-the-line designs are all they are cracked up to be. Some just like sticking to the basics.
“I’m definitely a more tonal person. I’m not big into bright colors,” Craig Cochran, a junior studying retail merchandising and fashion production, and also an Adidas collector, said. “I like simplicity. Simplicity is key in everything. Because if you can’t get the basics down, you can’t get ahold of anything else.”
Cochran said he wants to design sneakers and athletic apparel for a living. Although he is dedicated to his shoe collection now, his sneaker fascination did not manifest until his senior year of high school, when he realized his attire was lacking some key components which led to his infatuation.
“I’m definitely always trying to design something that just looks new … something that’s unusual,” Cochran said. “Like shoes are kind of an important part of every outfit. It starts from the ground up.”
Inspirations for collecting
Shoes with style will more easily spread across social media platforms. People are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a pair of sneakers because of the way the shoes look, but also because that person wants to display how he or she belongs to a type of “status” group, Gannon said. By posting a photo on social media platforms, there is the immediate gratification of knowing others are associating that person with a specific status while receiving hundreds of views or “likes,” which are translated into instant compliments.
“It’s not necessarily that (people) are brand loyal,” Gannon said. “It’s that they’re design loyal, because they want something that looks aesthetically pleasing because they want to put it on their Instagram, they want to put it on their Snapchat.”
Not all sneaker collectors are invested in shoes for likes and favorites. Dahlen admits that he owns at least 40 pairs of Nike sneakers himself, but his motive behind collecting so many pairs of shoes is to look trendy while he is running and staying healthy.
“If I have to exercise … I’m going to look good doing it,” Dahlen said.
He is moreso invested in the idea of fashionable color coordination. He owns hundreds of Nike shirts and shorts, which he then matches with the appropriate-colored shoes before heading to to the gym.
“(It has come) to the point that I’ve had people come up to me and go ‘are you sponsored by Nike?’ ” Dahlen said.
Wes Lumpkin, a senior studying management and strategic leadership and marketing, is not the average casual shoe collector. He owns about 300 pairs of shoes, with a large number of those being sneakers. His enthusiasm for shoes started at a young age, and it has not subsided as time has passed.
“It honestly started with like my mom, because she really likes shoes … (I was) always making sure I kept good care of them, because if I didn’t, I’d get in trouble,” Lumpkin said. “I’d have to take separate shoes to school to play, so that’s how picky she was on stuff.”
His fascination with sneakers slowly developed into a hobby when he worked at a Finish Line athletic retail store while he was in high school and was able to receive an employee discount, which helped lower the cost of the shoes. Even with the discount, Lumpkin said he spent about $15,000 on shoes to acquire the collection he has now, with his most expensive purchase being a two-pack — the Air Jordan “Brazil Pack” — which he bought for $500.
As students start to collect more shoes, their hobbies may develop into more than just a fun assortment of sneakers. While many collectors do not like to classify themselves as sneaker-obsessed, they might find that they are on a fast track to a sneaker frenzy.
“I wouldn’t say it’s an obsession right now,” Cochran said. “But the first step to admitting you have a problem is denial.”
