The Future of Sneakers: Tech, Community, & Juvenile Delinquents
It's bright and filled with superheroes. Seriously.
A few weeks back I spoke to the footwear design students at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco about the importance of storytelling in the sneaker world and walked away feeling inspired, intrigued, and excited about what’s to come for footwear. This year has been tough for everyone and finding hope for a better future has been even more difficult than ever. Even more so when you constantly see people belittling “Millennials” and “Gen Z” with such relentlessness. For transparency, I fall right in the middle of Gen X and Millennials depending on whose age range you reference but I feel like I relate to Gen Z more than I do any other age group. In all honesty, when I think about the younger generations, I can’t help but wonder how older generations can expect anything from the younger considering how much damage has been done by the former in terms of human health, global climate change, the lack of equality for our black and brown brothers and sisters, and the divisiveness of politics that continues to spread like cancer through our society. That said, the students I spoke to gave me a much-needed pick me up by asking some intriguing questions as we discussed what the coming years in the footwear business would look like.
While I have a pretty good track record of understanding where the footwear business is going, I have no professional training, no college degree, and no skillset that formally validates my opinions. I do have an uncontrollable desire to make everyone around me better and to improve my own communication skills. Those two things require me to do one thing better than anything else, and that is…listen. Combine that with a passion for sneakers that most people would see as insane at a very minimum, and I believe you’ll have an understanding of where I’m coming from. In short, I just love this stuff and I love the people I’ve met because of sneakers. I do my best to embrace and empower the youth because that’s who will inevitably carry everything forward.
Before we get into the details of what the future of footwear will look like, let’s take a quick look at its current state. First things first, there are a lot of ”old way of thinking types” that still hold the steering wheel of the industry. That’s not always a bad thing, the business has been booming for years now, and that’s not to say there isn’t a small percentage of people who are conscious of the disconnect between generations, but as we all know, change doesn’t happen overnight. There is also a perception that the younger generations all want to look the same and buy the same products. NEWS FLASH: If you’re reading this and think you don’t have the same sneakers in your closet as your friends of about the same age, you’re either not paying attention or you are not really into sneakers. One of the most concerning elements of the current state of the business is the set of new challenges being faced, some predictable like the slow death of traditional retail and climate change, and others like Covid-19 shutdowns, that even with advance notice would bring unpredictable challenges. Last but not least, there are hungry and inspired young people eagerly waiting to be the change that the sneaker business desperately needs to address the challenges that exist in the footwear business.
To look at the future of footwear, I’m going to break it down into the three most important pillars: technology, community, and motivation. I could go deeper into specific subject matters but today I’m going to keep it high level. (If there’s a topic you’d like me to go in-depth on, feel free to leave a comment.)
Technology
When you think of the future of footwear, the first thing that probably comes to mind is technology. While I think auto-lacing sneakers are incredible (I even based my presentation to CCA around them), there are a lot of more important technological advances that will ultimately carry sneakers forward by solving problems that we all face.
From a sneakerhead perspective, the idea of collecting sneakers like many did back in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s did, seems to be fading rather quickly. I’m one of those people hanging on to 1,000+ shoes, desperately clinging to the false narrative that “now that I can afford them, I’ll get them” is somehow healing the burden of financial struggles my family faced when I was a kid. I realize that’s not the case and I am slowly but surely mentally preparing to downsize. In the meantime, I’ve found that collecting digital sneakers on an app called Aglet is fulfilling some of my need to buy more shoes (shameless plug, use my referral code 1GT7O5!). I’m not much of a gamer but Aglet to me is what I assume Pokémon GO is to many people. It gets me out and about in the real world, chasing new pick-ups, stopping at cleaning stations, and socializing in a virtual world. In fact, this is something I wanted to do in the early days of StockX as a marketing campaign but it never panned out. As the company grows, I can only imagine how virtual actions will tie into real-world events, and sneaker releases, and become one of the high-energy partners for anyone and everyone in the sneaker game.
From a business perspective, sustainability will be the single most important aspect of doing business in the future. We’re already seeing companies like adidas committing to sustainable practices, but that’s really just the beginning. Materials like BLOOM, an algae-based sustainable material that acts much like typical EVA that’s commonly used in midsoles, is an example of how the production and manufacturing processes can be reimagined for the future of footwear design.
A couple of other technologies I am excited to see become a part of the footwear design world are centered around conductivity. Bare Conductive is a company that makes paints that conduct electricity. I’m not smart enough to know how it should be used in designing footwear, but the light bulb in my head is already turned on from it. The other material I’m curious to see grow into its conductive potential is graphene. Vollebak uses this in some of their products now but we’re merely scraping the surface with this one and combined with some of the other cutting-edge technologies in development, the possibilities literally give me goosebumps.
Most importantly, we will see a major shift in the conversation around sustainability. I’m not dismissing the importance of using “green” materials, sustainable practices, or committing to the use of recyclable materials, but I think we are asking the wrong question. It’s not about whether your shoes are made of recyclable materials, it’s about your shoes being recyclable themselves. The byproducts of manufacturing are things we need to be concerned with, but we also need to be aware of what happens to the shoes after we wear them. For instance, people hear about a pair of sneakers being “vegan,” which is great, I’m all for not killing animals. However, in most cases, especially in footwear, vegan means varying forms of plastics that are equally as problematic for our future.
Community
Other than being a necessity, one of the biggest factors that influence people to buy sneakers is the social aspect. Sometimes a new pair of shoes is a talking point with friends. Other times it’s bringing you back to a memory from long ago. While this is even more poignant today with a pandemic and social distancing, so many people are on social media craving connection with others. We are social beings and while we don’t always recognize the deeper meaning behind our desire to share with our friends, families, and even strangers on the internet, it’s in our nature to share our passions with other people.
Sneakers have been about community for as long as they’ve been popular. Whether you were painting your Air Force 1s in NYC in the ‘80s, cutting out your favorite shoes from Eastbay catalogs in the ‘90s, or camping out in front of stores with your friends in the early 2000s, the common link between the cultural experience of sneakers through the decades is the moments that you share with others.
Over the next 10 years, the meaning of community for the footwear business will become exponentially important compared to what it is now. Because of the growth of companies like Amazon, where the entire shopping experience has become about convenience, consumers young and old are constantly being more selective about who they give their money to, especially for goods and services that are more important than consumable goods. Not to mention the social implications of 2020 and beyond that seem to be starving consumers for meaningful connections. This means there will be opportunities for entrepreneurs to start their own companies, brands, and services that will be able to move more quickly than a big business like say, Foot Locker, Inc. These companies will be able to create a sense of community that gets lost in big businesses, building their own unique following that is more personal to the consumers, and thus, something that they care much more about.
Essentially, the pendulum is poised to swing back towards the feeling of a mom-and-pop shop that not only knows your name but also has an investment in your well-being because their own well-being depends on it. That will mean that YouTube, podcasts, Discord groups, and the many other places where we all find meaningful connections online, will become even more important for the business of footwear to embrace.
Motivation
The younger generations have more motivation than anyone before them. They’ve been dismissed by the business because of the way they dress, the type of music they listen to, and the way they consume content. The older generation’s lack of understanding frames the youth to seem unprofessional, lazy, and unable to “put in the work” to become successful in business. On the contrary, the youth are motivated to become successful at what they want, not what some 60+ year old in a shirt and tie thinks success means. Why would they want to be a part of a business where nobody who looks like them, or comes from where they come from, is a part of the leadership?
While I am hypocritically criticizing one age group as I suggest not to do the same to another, I should point out that not everyone fits into these generalizations. Personally, I think it’s not about an age group but more about a state of mind that can be summed up with one of my favorite quotes from Patagonia founder, Yvon Chouinard, who in his book called Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman, said…
“If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, "This sucks. I'm going to do my own thing.”
There’s a chip on the shoulder of the youth right now. They don’t want to fit into the box that has been placed in front of them. There are opportunities to create for themselves in ways that never existed before thanks to the limitless information and connections that exist in the evolving digital space. There’s a chance to literally save the planet. So, for the motivated, the chance to become a literal superhero is on the table. If that was on the table for me at half my age, I’d bet all my chips on myself. For now, I’m putting all my faith in the next generation to transform the norms of the footwear business and after speaking to some of the design students, I don’t think I’ve ever been more confident in my future in this business.
On the topic of sustainability I would also like to see large brands starting to think of innovative solutions to manufacture sneakers locally (maybe using 3D printers for example). Because while I like the recent Nike Space Hippie collection, and the fact that it’s the « result of sustainable
practices meeting radical design », what’s the point if in the end those millions of shoes are shipped from China or Vietnam to the rest of the world. But this topic is bigger than sneakers obviously.