Chad Froomkin

October 27, 1999

English 151

Amanda Warren

One thing that people put too much emphasis in fashion on is a shoe. Expensive Doc Martens or a pair of two hundred dollar Basketball shoes always seem to be the fashionable things to wear. The more expensive the shoes you wear, the cooler you seem to be. To put so much money towards a shoe that gets worn out faster than any other article of clothing, and is never very noticeable unless looking down towards the floor, is ridiculous. Shoes should be bought because they are comfortable, not because someone on television says they are cool. Just because an NBA superstar like Gary Payton, or Kevin Garnett, or even Michael Jordan wears a certain kind of shoe, does not make the shoe good or better than any other shoe. If the new Air Jordan’s came out and they were banana yellow, and had hot pink stripes with fat, brown laces, the shoes would probably be really popular just because they are the new Air Jordan’s. Shoes have gone from something to keep your feet protected when you walk, to representing your social standing, along with the kind of person that you are.

Some people think you can tell a lot from a person just by what they are wearing on their feet. It is wrong, but everyone can stereotype a person just by what kind of shoes they have on. If someone is wearing Doc Martens they are automatically labeled as a prep. If someone has on the brand new Air Jordan’s they are looked at as a jock. Chuck Taylor’s equals someone wanting to look old school. If you have Velcro laces you are too stupid or lazy to tie your shoes. Wearing Spalding’s automatically makes someone think you live in a trailer park. K-Swiss tennis shoes are either worn by gay people, tennis players, or gay tennis players. High Black boots are associated with Neo-Nazis. Doc Marten sandals or name brand sandals are preppy, yet if someone wears those sandals with no socks, or a cheaper pair of sandals with no socks they are looked upon as hippies (or they just haven’t done laundry in a while and have no clean socks). If you are a guy, and you wear five-inch elevator shoes you are either targeted as a freak, a pimp, or a person really insecure about their height, depending on what is worn with those elevator shoes. Are all these stereotypes true? No, but there are many people who have these stereotypes just because that is how the dominant society portrays people in this way. The way we look at shoes has, in some way or another, constructed our ideology.

Shoes become popular for many different reasons. One reason is if someone you know buys a new pair of shoes, and that person is portrayed as “cool.” If that person is “cool” and they are wearing a particular kind of shoe, then that shoe is “cool” too. Some people can’t be independent and pick a shoe because they like it; they have to pick a shoe, because they want to be like someone to fit that mold. This coincides with shoe advertisements. Most shoe advertisements have a celebrity, or more commonly an athlete, selling their product. This athlete is shown in this advertisement wearing these shoes and giving their full recommendation on this particular brand of shoe. Just for the simple fact that this certain athlete endorses this shoe, kids and adults alike are going to want this shoe. They might not even have ever seen a certain shoe. Sometimes a person can hear if a shoe is good just by word of mouth. So, they go into the shoe store and say, for instance, “Do you have the new Penny Hardaway shoes?” Not even knowing what they look like, that person has already made up his mind on what kind of shoe he is going to wear on his feet for about the next six months, just because the shoes are “the new Penny Hardaway shoes.”

Shoes that are not popular become popular again for odd reasons. Back in the day, the coolest things to wear were Nikes or Reeboks. Nobody really wore any other brand anymore. It used to be hard to find Adidas shoes, and rarely would there ever be some kind of advertisement for Adidas. That all was changed by a little band out of Bakersfield, California called Korn. Korn came out in nineteen ninety-four with a self-titled debut album. Since their genre of music is never played on the radio, they became popular from word of mouth. So these Korn fans would go to a Korn concert and notice one thing about the band, and that was they were all wearing Adidas shoes along with Adidas shirts and pants. So these die-hard fans would start wearing all Adidas to show their support towards the band. Soon not only did the band following grow, but so did the idea that Adidas and the three stripes were cool again. So more and more people started to wear Adidas. Then in nineteen ninety-six Korn came out with their second album, and on that album was a song entitled A.D.I.D.A.S. (which is an acronym for all day I dream about sex). From that point on Adidas blew up, not only were shoe stores selling more Adidas, but there were ads and commercials for them. They soon ousted Reebok to join Nike as the two most popular brand shoes sold in this country. Adidas, according to some, became this popular for the simple reason that a rock band promoted their company.

Why do people have to wear shoes for these reasons? It could be, because of an old saying: “keeping up with the Jones’s.” Some people want to conform to a certain society, so they can be accepted and be the same as everyone else. If everyone were the same why would life be worth living? The whole point of life is to have your own identity. No one wants to mold their life according to what society wants, or because a famous person tells you if life is lived a certain way then it is okay. Shoes do not display the kind of person that you are; they are just something that you wear on your feet so you don’t have to go through life walking barefoot.