Kicks
Subtitle: the great American story of sneakers
By: by Nicholas Smith
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2018
Language: eng
Number of pages: 308
ISBN-13: 9780451498113; 9780451498120
Subjects: Sneakers
Other titles: Great American story of sneakers
Description: "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."--Amazon.com.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Prologue; title: The father of invention; title: Peach baskets and tennis sets; title: Johnny Basketballseed; title: War and brothers; title: Builderman; title: Swoosh; title: Courting style; title: Everyone is doing it; title: Meanwhile, on the West Coast; title: Let's get physical; title: Style and flow; title: His Airness; title: Mars and Mike; title: Battle of the brands; title: Sneaker crime and punishment; title: I, Sneakerhead; title: Back at it again; title: Epilogue.