Sneakers

A shoddy business

A shoddy business: A new documentary explores the journey of the humble sneaker from ghetto counter-culture to the very centre of global capitalism. Luke Benedictus reports.

Growing up in the Bronx in the early 1980s, Lisa Leone went to school with members of the Rock Steady Crew, the famous breakdancing posse. "We never thought of it like a 'movement'," the 39-year-old filmmaker says over the phone from New York. "It was just a bunch of kids dancing and having fun."

But even though hip-hop was still in its embryonic stages, footwear was already the ultimate expression of street style. "I had a pair of Puma Clydes and a drawer full of laces of all different colours," Leone remembers.

"Every night before school I would lay out my outfit and relace my sneakers with different colours - like the yellow with the red or something. I did it every night, like a religion."

Leone and Frenchman Thibaut De Longeville have put their shared obsession with sneakers to good use as directors of Just For Kicks, a documentary about "sneakers, hip-hop and the corporate game".

posted by Eugen @ 10:47 AM