We began our journey to the world of athletic footwear by presenting the 11 most expensive tennis shoes in the world. On this article we will list the 11 most popular brands of sport shoes and examine the history of this popular modern footwear. The journey of athletic shoes begins in the 1870’s with people on vacation. Later, gentlemen of the higher economic classes in Britain and the United States started wearing them while playing tennis — the rubber sole offered better grip, resulting in fewer injuries and better performance. Soon ‘plimsolls’ as they were called in Britain, or ‘sneakers’ in the United States, made their way to 1924 Paris Olympics. In addition, tennis shoes were adopted by prisons and the military, a factor that had a huge impact on mass production of athletic footwear. After the 1950’s, school dress codes became less strict, and sales boomed as more and more children, adolescents, and adults started wearing sneakers to perform their everyday activities in a more comfortable fashion.
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Nowadays tennis shoes are extremely popular, and other types of footwear have even ‘borrowed’ elements of athletic shoe innovation to make casual and professional footwear more comfortable. There was even a short-lived merger of athletic shoe behemoth Nike and professional shoe brand Cole Haan. Taboos about ‘proper’ dress have moved aside and athletic footwear is often worn to special events like music awards, the Oscars, fashion shows, and even weddings! You don’t have to be a professional athlete to wear sneakers. Many of the shoes on the list of top sellers are worn by major style icons around the world, making them safe to wear with any casual outfit.
The order of the list is based on the comparison of three different cross-time, cross-region researches on athletic footwear sales between 2008 and 2014 in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Europe, Turkey, China, Singapore, South Korea and Japan. That time period covers the global economic crisis, but the outcome shows that athletic footwear companies not only didn’t record losses — they’ve increased revenues!
