Rooting Into Skate Culture
Nike's basketball shoe line was fairly popular in the skateboarding scene, and the Dunk soon became a popular shoe for skaters due to the stability and lower profile sole which improved grounding performance. In 2002, Nike created a Dunk specifically for skateboarders, known as the Nike Dunk SB. It features an extra-padded "puffy tongue" (common among skateboarding sneakers) and Nike's patented Zoom Air insole. Since then, the SB Dunk has become a popular icon for enthusiastic sneaker-collectors, and has hit the streetwear fashion scene. Nike currently collaborates with many designers to create special edition and collectible Dunks. The popularitiy of these dunks has grown so wide that it has prompted Nike to create many other kinds of shoes specifically for skateboarding such as Paul Rodriguez's, Tre's, Blazer's, and Team Editions to name a few. These shoes mimic the colorways and limited quantities of that of Nike Dunk SBs, which increases their value and appeal. As Nike became a hit, they not only were bought for daily usage they started evolving into collector items. Many would line up outside Nike Town and other specific stores for days waiting for the release of the new Dunks. Once this new hot item is sold out, the price in the pair of shoes rises substantially. For example the Avengers SB was released in June 2005 for $65 retail. Now they are worth over $150 if you are able to access them through forums and online sites such as eBay and craigslist.
Read more about this topic: Dunk (footwear)
Famous quotes containing the words rooting, skate and/or culture:
“We should have learnt by now that laws and court decisions can only point the way. They can establish criteria of right and wrong. And they can provide a basis for rooting out the evils of bigotry and racism. But they cannot wipe away centuries of oppression and injustice—however much we might desire it.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“To fill the hour,—that is happiness; to fill the hour, and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval. We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate well on them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When we want culture more than potatoes, and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a world are taxed and drawn out, and the result, or staple production, is, not slaves, nor operatives, but men,—those rare fruits called heroes, saints, poets, philosophers, and redeemers.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)