Sneakers, Their Story is Our Own
In this article the designer and recent PJAIT graduate Stanislav Sergeichuk delves into the role the sneaker plays in our historical and contemporary material culture.
Have you ever heard of such sayings as a “walk a mile in someone’s shoes.” meaning to understand somebody? Or to “eat a shoe” if somebody is wrong? Or “the shoe is on the other foot” when the situation has changed to the opposite of what it was before? There are a lot of sayings in our common language concerning intimacy and footwear. But what’s really behind the sneakers we face every day in our life?
The History of the Sneaker
“In L.A. we are wearing Chucks, not Bally’s.”
- Tupac Shakur[1]
Through the decades footwear transitioned from an essential piece that protected our feet against adversities of the environment to a universal tool that can carry a lot of information about the person who wears it. Sneaker collectors can find out if a person is following the latest in sneaker community, gang members can check if a person is affiliated to any gang and even subcultures such as e.g. goths or emos can recognize each other with a special style of the footwear, clothing and accessories.
But, generally, we are all connected by a desire to walk with comfort from point A to B. But what is the real comfort? Being softly cushioned by newly invented technologies from a giant brand, or wearing old heavy chunky shoes to keep your position in a subculture ?
The world’s oldest shoes were found in 1938 in Fort Rock Cave, which range in age between 10,500 BP to 9200 BP.[2] At this time shoes served a role exclusively for the protection of the feet against different adversities of the environment. Nowadays, for many people shoes are not just something that simply perform just this function anymore. Giorgio Riello, Professor of Early Modern Global History, in his studies of footwear explains:
“Footwear is a garment characterized by a long history. In prehistoric times, it was a simple piece of wood or leather and was used to protect the foot. Today shoes are more than functional objects. They convey a wide range of meanings associated with fashion, style, personality, sexuality, gender and class.”[3]
But why shoes and not a t-shirt or sweatpants? The difference between clothing and shoes is that clothing is becoming unisex in all aspects, while sneakers keep their gender-specific setup in terms of sizing, pattern, colors, etc.
Sneaker culture was raised under the influence of hip-hop culture which was male-dominant, and hip-hop culture raised under the influence of economic and social situation in New York City in the 1970’s. Going deeper into hip-hop, you will get to know that this culture was built up by working class people. It was created by people from the streets, as it’s usually the working-class who create style in fashion. It was about creative people who couldn’t afford haute-culture clothes. Because they couldn’t afford it, they made it on their own. Cutting shorts and shirts in a certain way, painting clothes in another.
“That’s why hip-hop is in fashion: people creating what they like, creating the look. People used to paint on clothes, not to go to the store and get something painted. They do it themselves . It’s not authentic when you buy it off a shelf. It’s just not.”[4]
Professor of Sociology Yuniya Kawamura states that any kind of material object is never independent from its social and cultural context and surroundings:
“The way we dress is consciously and subconsciously imposed on us by external factors. As long as something or someone belongs to a society, social influences are unavoidable.”
Yuniya Kawamura also shares her opinion on what sneakers are for a sneaker-enthusiast nowadays in her research:
“When I’m wearing my fresh pair of sneakers, it puts me on a different level. I am who I am because of my sneakers. I am what I wear on my feet. It’s a feeling I can’t describe. I feel so good inside. It’s the feeling only the sneakerheads can understand. If you are not one of us, you won’t understand how we feel about sneakers.”[5]
This leads us to the point where sneakers are not just sneakers. Sneakers are a virtual, as well as physical form of an informal network, which can be named as a subculture. But as something rises in symbolic value for one person, for another it rises in exchange value.
A Brief Introduction to the Symbolic Value of the Sneaker
“Shoes may no longer mean the difference between starving and not, but they still have great symbolic power.”
- Nicholas Smith «Kicks» [6]
According to Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture, symbolic value signifies the immaterial value attributed to an object or an idea and communicates its symbolic meaning. The meaning is highly dependent on how it is interpreted and appropriated in a socio-cultural context.[7] The word symbol comes from the Greek verb symballein, meaning “to piece together; to (re)join.” Within the verb symballein this assembly or joining together also implies a veiling or coveting. In its modern meaning the word symbol is that image of an object, person, or thing made to stand for a wider concept or quality. By utilising imagery symbols are visually effective; they embody ideas and reinforce ideologies and beliefs. In contrast to this an object’s exchange value is defined as the quantitative aspect of value, as opposed to “use-value” which is the qualitative aspect of value, and constitutes the substratum of the price of a commodity.[8]
The Encyclopedia of Case Study Research provides us with information on a function of symbolic value as an authoritative embodiment of the symbol. A person, thing, or place may have symbolic value; that is, aside from any tangible capital (e.g., economic or political) they have significant symbolic resonance.[9] This ‘symbolic resonance’ will be explored later in this series of articles through the lens of intimacy as a means of trying to understand why the sneaker, more than other items of clothing, has become both a luxury item and a symbol of social mobility.
Certain things can have a use value — a practical objective as well as symbolic value: for example, the ability to communicate identity. Looking at value, the French sociologist, philosopher and cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard accepts the idea of use value — that is, that things are valued in terms of what they do for us, such as valuing a half-litre of water because it is necessary for the body to function. [10] Exchange value recognises that context and circumstance, including investment conditions, risk and power, and so on, affect the value of the same commodity in time and place; so, according to Baudrillard, a litre of water may have greater value to a wanderer in the Sahara Desert than a hiker in Wordsworth’s Lake district.
[1]2Pac was an american rapper and actor
[2]Tom Conolly, The World’s Oldest Shoes, The University of Oregon, accessed on 01.09.20, https://pages.uoregon.edu/connolly/FRsandals.htm
[3]Giorgio Riello, A Foot in the Past(2006), p. 1.
[4]Yuniya Kawamura, Sneakers: Fashion, Gender, and Subculture(Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016)
[5]Ibid.,
[6]Author of Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers.
[7]Dale Southerton, Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture (SAGE Publications, 2011), Volume 1, inc, Entry
[8]Ibid., 912
[9]Ibid., 721
[10]Ibid., 912.
[11]Encyclopedia of Marxism,Glossary of Terms, accessed on 01.09.20, https://www.marxists.org/encyclopedia/
[12]Dale Southerton, Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture (SAGE Publications, 2011), Volume 1, inc, p. 698.
