Author : Nicholas Smith
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0451498135
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (514 download)
Book Synopsis Kicks by : Nicholas Smith
Download or read book Kicks written by Nicholas Smith and published by Crown. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cultural history of sneakers, tracing the footprint of one of our most iconic fashions across sports, business, pop culture, and American identity When the athletic shoe graduated from the beaches and croquet courts of the wealthy elite to streetwear ubiquity, its journey through the heart of American life was just getting started. In this rollicking narrative, Nicholas K. Smith carries us through the long twentieth century as sneakers became the totem of subcultures from California skateboarders to New York rappers, the cause of gang violence and riots, the heart of a global economic controversy, the lynchpin in a quest to turn big sports into big business, and the muse of high fashion. Studded with larger-than-life mavericks and unexpected visionaries—from genius rubber inventor, Charles Goodyear, to road-warrior huckster Chuck Taylor, to the feuding brothers who founded Adidas and Puma, to the track coach who changed the sport by pouring rubber in his wife's waffle iron—Kicks introduces us to the sneaker's surprisingly influential, enduring, and evolving legacy.