Sneakerism – Your lighthouse in the world of sneakers
Sneakers are a staple of the modern wardrobe. We love them for their casual, yet sophisticated look they give us. When traditional shoes communicate a certain range of values, a sneaker is veritable generation novel. We like that.
The industry has acknowledged this and is working hard to give you more options and tools to design your own shoe. Nike, Adidas, Puma and Levi Strauss are all working hard to reach what the industry is calling “Mass Customization”.
It isn’t easy. The SF-dreams of body scanners has not worked out yet. Mass – made to measure is still in its infancy and brands look to offer customized products in other ways. So far NikeiD, the modular shoe design site, has been the most successful tool. Still, they don’t generate huge revenue streams but what they give Nike is insights from their “die hard” fans, their early adopters, without having to pay for the information. That information can then be translated into new colour combinations and collections for mass production.
At the other end of the spectrum you have the problem of what to do with your shoes when they are worn out. How do you recycle your old Stan Smith that served you so well this summer?
The industry is gearing up to meet the problem. At the moment “Take-Back Programs” is the favourite tool. It is easy to market, shows a lot of goodwill, and it’s easy to manage. In the US and Australia Nike has been working together with Reuse–A–Shoe. It involves a number of collection points where people can deposit their old shoes. The rubber is then used to make playing surfaces for sports like tennis, basketball, track & field and so on.
The problem with Take-Back Programs is that they require customer participation. Even though over 1 million pairs of shoes were collected in the US in 2005 (only figure we could find), it’s still a drop in the ocean. The shoes themselves are not designed to be taken apart. Materials are mixed making reusable and non reusable materials fused together and becoming monstrous hybrids with glues being used that are quite poisonous. To separate these two and to then make pavement materials is bound to become problematic, since the materials weren’t designed to be used in that way. In the future when those rubber substances start to leak their toxic juice into the ground water, how “eco” will we have been?
We need designs that allow shoes to be recycled to shoes, not downcycled into lesser value and eventually into landfills or put in a incinerator. Wouldn’t it be nice to see your favourite pair of well worn “Chuckies” have another life after they fall apart?
But that is another story.
