The sneaker’s long road to fashion

Sneakers have come a long way – from the Fifties when they started to become popular in the USA to the present day – passing from a low-cost product to a ‘70s status-symbol, to explode as a global phenomenon in the ‘80s in the wake of the hip-hop subculture.

With the complicity of sports champions such as Michael Jordan who created the Nike Air Jordan phenomenon, still on the crest of the wave today.

In subsequent years they broke away from the sports world to become a fashion statement, thanks amongst others to Raf Simons and Hedi Slimane who in 2004 were the first to take them onto the catwalk. After that they caught on amongst all those designers who, as well as collaborating with the big international sports brands, also produce their own line of sneakers.

Even if the models presented by Adidas&Co. every season are always totally cool, we should not forget that there are many Italian makes of sneakers that manage to successfully combine fashion and comfort, high-quality materials and avant-garde construction techniques.

The fil rouge, the unifying thread, remains the same however: fashion, which manifests itself through an ongoing search for new materials and combinations, an attention to detail and working processes, that represent the strengths of Italian manufacturing know-how. 

[Cover image: Fratelli Rossetti SS 2016]