The September issue of Harper's included a collective review of two books and one recent documentary film about sneakers, under the headline, "Joint Ventures: How sneakers became high fashion." The reviewer, Charles Bock, is described as the author of a forthcoming novel called Alice & Oliver.
The three works are as follows:
Where'd You Get Those? New York City's Sneaker Culture 1960 - 1987. Tenth Anniversary Edition, by Bobbito Garcia;
Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture, by Elizabeth Semmelback.
Sneakerheadz 70 min. Directed by David T. Friendly and Mick Partridge.
I'll just offer one brief quote from the review here:
Nobody could know, of course, what was coming. In the Eighties, Reebok was the reigning sneaker king, thanks to a focus on women's aerobics. In 1984, Nike's stock was dropping -- the Oregon-based company had recently closed one of its New England facilities. Ten million dollars hadbeem cit from the company's operating budget, and Phil Knight, Nike's cofounder and CEO, was tryoing to trim his basketball operations. At the urging of Sonny Vaccato, the company's talent scout, Nike set its sights on the college player of the year, a charismatic, six-foot-six talent named Michael Jordan.
Good call, Sonny.
I've got nothing further to say about this. The Reebok/Nike thing simply strikes me as a nugget worth keeping about corporate/marketing history in the mid-80s.
The three works are as follows:
Where'd You Get Those? New York City's Sneaker Culture 1960 - 1987. Tenth Anniversary Edition, by Bobbito Garcia;
Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture, by Elizabeth Semmelback.
Sneakerheadz 70 min. Directed by David T. Friendly and Mick Partridge.
I'll just offer one brief quote from the review here:
Nobody could know, of course, what was coming. In the Eighties, Reebok was the reigning sneaker king, thanks to a focus on women's aerobics. In 1984, Nike's stock was dropping -- the Oregon-based company had recently closed one of its New England facilities. Ten million dollars hadbeem cit from the company's operating budget, and Phil Knight, Nike's cofounder and CEO, was tryoing to trim his basketball operations. At the urging of Sonny Vaccato, the company's talent scout, Nike set its sights on the college player of the year, a charismatic, six-foot-six talent named Michael Jordan.
Good call, Sonny.
I've got nothing further to say about this. The Reebok/Nike thing simply strikes me as a nugget worth keeping about corporate/marketing history in the mid-80s.
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