How sneaker culture took over the world
As depicted in the new Ben Affleck film Air, here’s how Michael Jordan and Nike’s iconic Air Jordans transformed the sneakerhead subculture into a $79 billion industry.
Sneakers have come a long way from when they were first invented in 1860s England for the upper-class playing croquet and tennis.
Long worn for function rather than fashion, today sneakers are an entire culture—both a form of self-expression and a high art found in museum exhibits and designer auction houses where a single pair can fetch millions of dollars.
As Ben Affleck’s star-studded film Air depicts, the emergence of sneaker culture can be traced to Nike’s 1984 collaboration with basketball superstar Michael Jordan on their iconic Air Jordans. Here’s the story of sneakers—and the sneakerheads who collect them.
Air Jordans and the rise of sneaker culture
Most sneakerheads credit the advent of their subculture to the rise of athlete-endorsed shoes in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Converse’s Chuck Taylor All-Stars had dominated the basketball courts for decades—and brands like Puma and Adidas started to get in on the action.
“What was happening in New York was an intertwining of basketball, hip-hop, and [break dancing],” says Elizabeth Semmelhack, director and senior curator of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, which in 2013 became the first North American museum to devote an exhibit to the history of sneakers.
But what transformed sneaker culture into a true phenomenon was the 1985 release of Nike’s Air Jordan 1s. In 1984, Michael Jordan was a talented rookie who had yet to play in a professional game. Despite that, Nike—better known then as a running shoe company—saw Jordan as the future of their brand and signed him to a five-year, $2.5 million endorsement deal.
Air Jordan 1s were not your grandfather’s basketball shoes. Debuting in bold hues of white, black, and red, Air Jordans were a defiant taunt to the NBA guidelines that required footwear to be 51 percent white. Sensing a marketing opportunity, Nike paid the $5,000 fine players received each time he stepped on the court wearing the shoes. The bet paid off: As Jordan proved to be one of the greatest basketball players of all time, the sneaker’s popularity skyrocketed.
Sneaker culture began to take off beyond the basketball court too. When the influential hip-hop group Run-D.M.C. released their single "My Adidas" in 1986, it earned the group a first-of-its-kind endorsement deal with the brand. Soon after, Kurt Cobain of the grunge band Nirvana made Converse a symbol of rebellion and youth.
Meanwhile, another cultural shift was taking place as white-collar businesses introduced casual Fridays. “It’s when you have an opening of the male wardrobe,” Semmelhack says. Suddenly, men were allowed to put aside their suits “and wear something one day a week that showed people who they really were.”
Sneakers become status symbols
As sneakers became increasingly coveted, footwear companies turned to generating even more hype by collaborating with celebrities and luxury brands, as well as releasing small batches of limited-edition shoes with eye-popping designs.
Rare sneakers became sought-after among collectors, and the sneaker reseller market flourished. “I have Air Jordan 1, 2, 3, and 5, so I better find 4,” Semmelhack says of the mentality that drove the rise of collectors. As resellers began to mark those shoes up at incredible costs, she adds, it only reinforced how special they were.
Pivotal artists like Rihanna, Travis Scott, and Kanye West defined the shoe game for nearly a decade with their iconic collaborations with brands. And then came the Kardashians.
(A mecca for rap has emerged in the birthplace of jazz and blues.)
“The Kardashian era had a huge impact on the culture,” says Jazerai Allen-Lord, a ground-breaking sneaker strategist, designer, and writer. After reality TV star Kim Kardashian married rapper-turned-fashion-designer Kanye West, she and her sisters started to wear his designs, which “helped target a whole new demographic of people to experience sneaker culture. It was a blending of high and low fashion, which the shoe industry never really seen before.”
By the mid-2010s, sneakers had become solid gold status symbols—literally, in the case of hip-hop artist Drake, who in 2016 commissioned a one-of-a-kind pair of Air Jordans wrapped in 24-carat solid gold. The estimated $2.1 million sneakers weighed 50 pounds each.
You May Also Like
“Wearing rare and cool sneakers [became] an expression of one’s social status,” says Yuniya (Yuni) Kawamura, professor of sociology at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. “They want to show off what they have and say that they are slightly better than others.”
But not all sneakerheads are this extreme. “The stereotype is that we are all in this for excess and status,” Allen-Lord says. “It’s a piece of the culture but it isn’t the whole culture.”
What is real sneakerhead culture?
For Xzaiver Griffin, 29, a Florida-based digital marketing manager who has around a hundred pairs of sneakers, collecting has brought him “a true community.”
“I’ve met true friends through sneakers. Whether it was camping out all night for a release back in the day or looking out for one another on release day to get a sneaker you really want, that’s what the sneakerhead culture is to me,” he says, adding that his friends have a group chat called Sneakerhead Alphas named for their fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha.
Sneakers are also how people express their beliefs—for instance, when NBA player Dwyane Wade wore his custom-designed, limited-edition “Black Lives Matter” Li-Nings or NFL placekicker Blair Walsh wore anti-bullying cleats covered in the words “Speak Out.”
(She founded Black Lives Matter. Here's why she's so hopeful for the future.)
“It’s like art,” says Akio Evans, a Baltimore creative who specializes in turning shoes into wearable artwork. “Even though it is a sneaker that is on the shelves or inside of a box inside a store, the very first thing you are doing is admiring what you see. You look at all the pieces and decide which one resonates with you.”
Decades after their first introduction to the fashion industry, sneakers are finally getting their due as part of our cultural heritage—and particularly how Black culture has shaped that heritage.
“The most impactful moment for the industry in the past three years was Nike, Adidas, and Reebok flat-out acknowledging there would not be sneaker culture without Black culture,” says Allen-Lord. “It took decades for them to even say that, for them to recognize that without these Black athletes or artists that [championed] their products there would be no sneaker culture.”
Starting, of course, with Michael Jordan. Today, more than 100 million pairs of Air Jordan 1s have been sold worldwide. In April 2023, a pair that Jordan wore in his legendary final NBA season sold for $2.2 million, making them the most expensive sneakers ever to appear at auction.
“It’s 2023, and Nike is still selling the same shoe that was designed almost 40 years ago,” says Allen-Lord. “Because of their permanence and their visibility as a status symbol, every kid aspires to create a shoe line.”
Still, there’s more to do on that front. According to NBC, only 5 percent of sneaker retailers in the U.S. are Black. But Allen-Lord says sneaker culture has also allowed her “to create space and opportunity for Black creatives, specifically women, to get their foot into the door in the sneaker industry.” And with more people at the table, the richer the narrative around sneakers will become.
“Sneaker culture has a strong storytelling heritage,” she says. “Everyone wants to tell their story.”
