It’s time to stop putting straps on sneakers. Sneakers do not need them. The strap, the Velcro, all of it can go. Before I get into it, I only mean sneaker designs going forward should not have straps and the Velcro that comes with it. I love the dozens of sneakers that have been blessed with the strap.
The strap serves a functional purpose and a fashionable one, but the former is what matters here. There was a reason for the strap, and that was for added support to the athlete wearing them. A quick Google search tells me Nike introduced the strap on the ever-classic Air Force One model in 1982. According to a Complex article, the strap on the Air Force One is officially called the proprioceptic belt. I don’t know why, but that sounds inappropriate. Moving on. A few years later Nike gave the world the Air Trainer in 1987. Bo Jackson would famously wear these shoes. Over the next four years he would go on to wear cross-training shoes donning straps.
In the 90s the strap as we know it would blow up. It was everywhere. I counted 20 pairs of sneakers off memory alone that had straps and Velcro. Signature athletes for the brand would go on to wear Nike featuring straps, perhaps none more famous than the Air Jordan 8 in 1993. The shoe itself was bulky and heavy. That very same year Charles Barkley wore the Nike Air Force Max. When I see those I think of the Michigan Fab Five. Nike would continue featuring straps in later years when Deion Sanders played in the Air Diamond Turf collection.
In 2003 Nike signed a player out of high school. The player? LeBron James. He has a new sneaker out every year and guess what? Three of them have straps on them. Why can’t we give up on these? The other NBA players with their own Nike shoes are Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, and Kyrie Irving. They each have at least one pair of sneakers with straps on them.
This all leads me to my next topic, Kanye West. He famously became the first non-athlete to have the privilege of receiving a signature pair of Nikes in 2009, the Air Yeezy. Straps. In 2012, he and Nike cooked up the Air Yeezy 2. More straps. I want to believe all these years of Nike featuring straps, as a performing function, influenced the design team for LeBron, Kobe, Kevin, Kyrie, and especially Kanye. I didn’t even mention all the Jordan retros that came after with straps. Victor Cruz, New York Giants football star gets the Technology has come a long way since the 80s and much loved, almost ad nauseum 90s that I think we are good without straps on sneakers. They are clunky, in the way, most times bulky and just have no purpose.
We need to be as forward thinking as they were in the 90s. Shoes should be smaller and sleeker. Straps are the absolute opposite of that.
JM The Dev
melbewriting
TJ
Stevie P
Gotham's Tribe 