With the development of economic and technology, people try to find more things to make their life more comfortable and fashion. So we created SNEAKER to satisfy our demand, it is not just be made for the basketball players to avoid the injury, it’s for everyone who love fashion and protect themselves. How does it protect us? It’s due to the materials of the vamp and the technology of the shoe sole, like ZOOM of Nike and BOOST of ADIDAS. But we can’t get the technology of leather. So today let’s contrast the SNEAKER and leather.
At first, let’s start from the basketball players. Playing basketball is intense that players constantly change direction on the pitch, in this process, the athlete’s low limbs would bear the brunt of some power. (CMES 2015, Yi qi Song, page327). In order to protect the basketball players from accidental injury, manufacturers carefully select materials and design shoe. For example, today’s basketball shoes use a knitted vamp technology to reduce the hurt and stress of the feet. what’s more? When we jump up and landing our knees will take a lot of impact, So to reduce this impact we usually use the air cushion, and something soft in the bottom of our SNEAKER. But we always wear the leather in the formal social situation. And although it doesn’t soft and comfortable. The adult always like it. They think the SNEAKER just be made for the teenagers and basketball players, they ignore the fashion of SNEAKER and the comfortable life we need.
Secondly, cushioning properties is an important index of basketball shoes. When athletes are competing for a rebounding or jumping, their bodies withstand the equivalent of five times their own weight impact. (CMES 2015, Yi qi Song, page327). So the shoe sole must use special materials which soft and damping. In today’s SNEAKER, we have much technology like SHOX, ZOOM, BOOST, and AIR MAX. SHOX is the use of high density of PU round of column replaced the real sea hedge, it can absorb the impact energy is transformed into kinetic energy. SHOXH skid resistance is very good. This is because the nut for Jordans of SHOX gas was placed on the edge of the bottom of the outside according to the principle of leverage, side impact torque GAS joints where appropriate to force the moment, but the link lever long, force is small, so the sideslip not sloppily.
What about ZOOM? The structure of the ZOOM AIR is a flat piece of air cushion, then is among many nylon fiber, when the gas expand, there will be the trend of the formation of globular, so it make nylon fiber straight into tight state, and thus form the balance. what I know about AIR MAX is that they use air bags to save the gas and when it gets the stress the air will flow, make your feet comfortable and keep balance. Do you know another technology of shoes? The 3d printing. it’s amazing to get a pair of sport shoes just use the 3d printing equipment. But it can just get a simple sport shoes, not the leather. In the future the 3d printing must be useful for many things and the sports shoes can be development by this storm. Another thing I want to contrast is the pollution of leather. Nike and Adidas had show the shoes which make up with the waste last year. not only did it reduce the cost, but also it can reduce the pollution of producting the shoes. But The leather industry deals with proteinous skin material for the conversion of leather and this generates huge amount of solid and liquid wastes giving rise to pollution that needs to be overcome by introducing sustainable cleaner technologies .( Journal of Cleaner Production, 2015, J.Kanagaraj page 1-17). So when we product leather we will get more pollution.
In 1921, the basketball player Chuck Taylor joined a basketball team called the Converse All Stars under the auspices of Converse. Taylor stated promoting All Star outside of the game and coaching, based on the long dress experience. Taylor gave so much advice for these shoes, so Converse decided to add his name on the ankle logo. It soon became known as “Chuck Taylor” ALL STAR. Yes, it’s the first SNEAKER. Since then Converse master the basketball shoes market until 1969. In this year, the German sports maker Adidas began to show their first basketball shoes Adidas Superstar. But what change the basketball fashion is AIR FORCE 1 of Nike in 1982, then Nike sign the first 6 players to improve the influence. It not just a pair of shoes, it’s a dream of all the people who love basketball. And in 1986, Michael Jordan show us the magic of fly, then Nike sign him and show the real profession SNEAKER Air Jordan 1. Since the AJ style became unstoppable. Then in 1989, the basketball shoes storm began from the Reebok, then other company like pump, And1, LINING, flowed in our eyes.
Until now Nike and adidas, have bought some of this companies and signed more and more basketball players. We all know Lebron, KD, AJ, and Wade. It shows the real basketball culture. Now let’s talk about the history of leather. Thousands of years ago,the ancestors of human beings had the habit of wearing shoes, such as use the leather of animals to cover their feet. And it has been developed so much in the next several dynasties. But the modern leather is come from the foreign country, the shoes that china makes originally with leather, the style is not identical.it falls into several categories for different purposes. Like the walking wear is called a single foot boots. The shape is similar to Bengal-shell cotton shoes. Rain wear called spikes. it is made of leather for the surface and the bottom, under the soles are the iron nails, these spikes were very popular in the 1920s. then the leather developed in the next years.
At last, let’s see the fashion of SNEAKER. Kawamura’s text is covering a rang of topics related to this type of footwear, starting with fashion history and covering the timeline of its subcultures, as well as including how the sneaker is a symbol of masculinity and analyzing the Durkheimian perspective of how sneakers play a part in social cohesion. (Sneakers, Fashion, Gender, and Subculture. YuniyaKawamura, 27 April 2017, page147). The fashion of SNEAKER is really important in our daily life, nearly 70% teenagers wear it, such as Yeeze, Nike air max, adidas NMD and so on. We just focus on the fashion it gives, and we always ignore the expensive price of the SNEAKER, so it must create more profit for the company. What’s more? In the fashion week of paris 2017, a pair of shoes named Wu Dao made by LINING lead the fashion all over the world. Not only does the special Chinese elements spread the culture of China, but also we improve the fashion influence of China. Now all over the world love Wu Dao, all over the world love China.
With the develop of technology, SNEAKER have been popular to everyone, but we didn’t see anything of the technology use for the leather. What I saw is the pollution of leather and the unconvenient of the leather. We are around in the basketball culture, and we are trying to find something made us comfortable, so I think the SNEAKER is better than the leather and I believe SNEAKER will be more and more technicalization in the future.
Vamp:(the part of a shoe upper or boot upper covering especially the forepart of the foot . CMES: International Conference on Civil, Materials and Environmental Sciences.
References
- Yiqi Song: Department of Physical Education, North China Institute of Science and Technology, Hebei 065201, China.
- Journal of Cleaner Production: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652614011858
