Hip Hop fashion and culture has always evolved alongside basketball. One of the earliest roots of modern hip hop culture is basketball shoes, originating with the Chuck Taylor’s. The advancement of basketball players and the sport led to more engineered footwear like Adidas’ Superstars and Puma’s brightly-colored suede shoes. Naturally, the popularity of basketball caused its shoes to become immensely popular casual shoes, especially in New York. This led to these shoes being identified with hip hop.
Hip Hop was created around the 1970s by teenagers from largely African American, Caribbean, and Puerto Rican backgrounds. It was formed around rap music, breakdancing, and graffiti art. Hip Hop continued to grow along with basketball, as black players also provided models of African American success. As hip hop became more engrained in American culture, many other artists from the art and film worlds were attracted to its creative energy.
It is interesting how shoes popular even today are so deeply rooted in American culture and fashion, such as converse, adidas, puma, and nike. It is even more fascinating that these shoes’ origins are tied to basketball and its growth in American history.
Lee, this is an interesting article. This article really illustrates the power of sub-culture to affect the larger dominant culture that surrounds it (such as hip hop culture affecting American culture in general). It makes me think of a number of questions: where does style come from? where do trends come from? who creates fashion? Do you think the symbolism and meaning of the shoes has remained or has it changed?