History
Soap shoes were essentially derived from rollerblades and aggressive skating. Chris Morris, a resident of California who worked at RollerBlade in Torrance for over sixteen years, worked to customize a simple shoe that had a grind plate embedded in the sole. The shoe was an average Nike, fitted for sliding. Concept 21 (a recently founded design firm) was called upon to design a sample so that the product could be finalized. They then formed Artemis Innovations, which would be the company the brand would be sold under for four years. In 2001, Mr. Morris lost control of the Soap license through legal problems. Activity within the company slowed down, and eventually the remaining executives sold Soap.
In-Stride, a company whose target market was primarily wrestling gear, purchased Soap. It is still debated whether In-Stride ever designed or released any Soap shoes, although evidence does suggest that they were responsible for a couple models that did not have grindplates. In-Stride went bankrupt in late 2002, and Soap was once again available for purchase.
Heeling Sports Limited, the company behind the shoes with a wheel in the sole known as Heelys, realized that the grindplate could be very profitable when paired with their wheel, and acquired Soap later that year. In early 2003, six new Soap shoes were released, each in multiple color schemes; simultaneously, HSL was designing hybrid shoes to sell under the Heelys brand. HSL has been criticized for releasing too many new models at a single time, and not supplying requested stock to retailers frequently enough. There is one model still in production from the first generation released by HSL, the Soap Express.
The sport never caught on to the mass market in comparison to, for instance, skateboarding, but the brand "Soap" does have a professional team mostly consisting of pro inline skaters. Soap's heyday was in the late 90's and early 2000s, when competing crews from across the Americas and Europe were releasing internet videos, spurring an online community of "Soapers". These crews have since disbanded along with the website forums, and now there are few proponents left. A revival of sorts was noticed in early 2006 as more people were attracted to Soaping, and HSL responded by re-releasing their Express model in limited quantities. Soap shoes continue to sluggishly regain popularity, although not without difficulty due to Heelys using grindplates in addition to their wheels.
Read more about this topic: Soap (shoes)
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