Published: Saturday - April 28, 2007
Words by Arnold T. Pants
The material past provides great inroads to our understanding of a given period of time and the specific cultural phenomena of a given place. Music, food, furniture, paintings and, yes, even clothing and sneakers are important documents of the past. To demonstrate, I wish to briefly discuss a shoe from my own collection, and highlight a few of the stories that we can generate by thinking critically about its various components.
The sneaker I am presenting today is the Mutombo signature edition basketball shoe released by Adidas during the 1992/1993 National Basketball Association season. Dikembe Mutombo is a native of Zaire, now Congo, and arrived in the United States after a U.S. Foreign Service officer brought him to the attention of Georgetown Basketball Coach John Thompson. A soccer player in his native land, the 7 foot 2 inch Mutombo played intramural basketball his freshman year (and as an aside, he is probably the greatest intramural athlete of all-time). Over the next three years, Mutombo solidified his status as a basketball star and after graduating with a degree in linguistics was a top pick in the 1991 NBA draft to the Denver Nuggets. Designed for his second professional season, this high-top shoe is made of modern synthetic polymers, synthetic fibers, and rubber (a scientific minded student could expand on this information and one could also discuss trade patterns related to the materials). No particular designer can be ascribed to the shoe. Its most distinguishing features are the shield logo on the tongue and the number "55," worn by Mutombo, and a printed geometric pattern over the forefoot. The shoe is built for an American sport, and an African born star. In design it exhibits a clear interest in cross-cultural exchange. As a signature shoe the object also reflects an American phenomenon that reached its peak during the early 1990s.
Let's spend some time thinking about the idea of the signature shoe:
The Converse rubber company of Malden, Massachusetts developed what is considered the first Basketball shoe in 1917. After several years of limited success, a young amateur ball player from Akron, Ohio named Chuck Taylor was recruited to help sell the Converse product. In 1923 the shoe was revamped and the Converse All-Star that is familiar to many of us was born. With Chuck as its spokesman, the shoe, to use a great understatement, became quite successful. The idea of using athletes to sell athletic shoes solidified, every major and minor shoe corporation built a stable roster of stars (Pete Marovich with Pro-Keds, Dominique Wilkins with Brooks and later Reebok, and even coaching legend John Wooden with Wilson Bata) particularly in the basketball arena through the 70s and 80s.
By the 90s, the signature shoe was really big business, as Sports Illustrated captured in this image from the November 30, 1992 issue of the magazine.
The originator of the signature shoe, Converse remained in the game (and has successfully reinvented itself again with the promotion of D. Wade). In 1992, Converse put out a shoe (the Aero Jam) for eventual rookie of the year Larry Johnson, who narrowly beat Mutombo for the prize. Their quirky ad campaign gained some followers, but there was much competition in the sneaker industry.
Also in 1992, Nike released its seventh edition of the Air Jordan, this example being a recent re-release of the shoe worn by Michael while playing for the Olympic Team (a.k.a. the Dream Team) in Barcelona (I bet you were wondering why I hadn't mentioned MJ). Jordan represents the ultimate achievement in signature shoes, as models bearing his logo are now released by a Nike subsidiary, simply known as Brand Jordan. Nike sales in the U.S. for the years of 1992 and 1993 would average just under two billion dollars.
Now, let's briefly address corporate history:
The Adidas shoe company was started by Adolf Dassler in 1946. The German based athletic shoe maker had early success with his brother Rudi, most famously outfitting Jesse Owens in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The brand with three stripes, as it is sometimes known, surfaced as the leader in the U.S. athletic market during the 1970s, and gained immortal status in American urban culture in the 1980s on the strength of rap group Run-DMC's 1986 hit "My Adidas." Still as the competition rose, Adidas faced a rapid decline. By 1992 the companies market share had fallen dramatically, to just 2% of the 10 million dollar American industry. In February of 1993, Adidas hired former Nike executive Robert J. Strasser, who we see here holding a Mutombo sneaker, to head newly created Adidas America. The company hoped that the basketball market would mark a return to high-sales for the brand.
In picking Dikembe Mutombo to represent the company's basketball division, Adidas had courted one of the NBA's rising stars. An all-star his first year, and runner up as rookie of the year, Mutombo entered his second season as the only real force on his Denver Nuggets. Adidas developed a shoe that was built for the center position, bulky and stable, but also an indication of Mutombo's personality, past, and proposed future of basketball, the African continent.
And finally, what does the design of the shoe tell us:
Dikembe Mutombo is a native of Zaire (now Republic of Congo), born to a prominent family and given a rather prominent full name, Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba, Jean Jacque Wamutombo. The geometric patterning on the sides and interior of the shoe share a distinct resemblance to the textiles of Mutombo's homeland. The textile shown beside the shoe is of cut-pile raffia from Bukuba, Zaire. Mutombo's heritage is just one clear design cue for the shoe.
Not only does the Mutombo shoe attempt to reflect the personality of its name sake, but the design and color schemes fit the more overarching style of the period. The early nineties began the mass marketing of urban, or hip hop culture, and with it brands like Cross Colors (which we see worn in this Movie still from the 1994 cult classic Fear of A Black Hat) marketed loose fitting clothing with a multitude of often Afro centric color schemes. The same yellows, reds, and greens seen on the Mutombo shield logo found there way onto pants, shirts, and hats, creating an orgy of color on the streets of America. The colors on the Mutombo shoe and on Cross Colors brand of clothing were supposed to represent unity and harmony, the integration of different cultures under the creation of a new one.
The manifestation of the growth of hip-hop culture on the sneaker industry can be distilled quite simply... it created a generation of collectors, bred on basketball and hip-hop. Beginning in the late 1970s, with what Bobbito has coined the connoisseur generation, sneakers and hip hop were to forever be intertwined. In October 2003 the magazine Sole Collector began, and features articles related to designers, collectors, and the detection of fakes on the sneaker market. Basketball shoes of the early 90s are particularly important because they represent the early days of many contemporary collectors. In addition to Sole Collector a few books of merit have been released in the last few years, including Robert Jackson's Sole Provider documenting 30 years of Nike basketball shoes, and Robert Garcia's Where Did you get those? An oral history of New York Sneaker culture from 1960-1987.
So, as you can see, looking closely at the sneaker we can tease out some stories. Corporate history, cultural trends, marketing strategy and even textile production provide strong threads in a rather interesting tale. Ultimately, I think the Adidas Mutombo deserves to stand beside, for example, Dorothy's ruby slipper in the National Museum of American History's popular culture gallery, as a clear representation of the culture that created it. From a stylistic point of view, Mutombo's signature shoe reflects the urban aesthetic of the early to mid-nineties better than any other related model. It also marks a pivotal point in Adidas company history, a time when the corporation shifted focus to America to secure its financial future (15 years later we see them again shifting focus towards the States). Even more generally, the shoe allows for an interpretation of marketing strategies. Finally, it is also important to preserve objects of contemporary history that appeal to a great number of serious enthusiasts.
While I am at it, I also wanted to touch on condition. I have spoken to several museum trained conservators about how to properly store and maintain shoes. Their suggestions are not only fiscally impossible for me, but a touch "conservative." Here is a break down: A long term concern is the yellowing of a sneakers mid-sole, and I am sure the conservators in the audience could come up with a better method than the average sneaker collector's "Rembrandt + toothbrush + elbow grease" to solve the problem. Due to the synthetic and rubber based materials comprising the shoes, they are particularly vulnerable to environmental degradation. The shoes should be exhibited in stable conditions with minimal light (no more than 5 foot-candles) and within the standard 68 (+/- 5) and 50% humidity. Dark cold, or even freezer, storage is recommended for the long term. So, if you really want to keep your kicks perfect, follow these rules. My advice is to just rock them and enjoy.
Finally, I got to shout out Helly Hansen (and my dude Rob) for making me part of the LOVE program and hooking up this ill tee. Good looking out!
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