Sandals

Sandals are one of the most common footwear people use, it can be seen almost everywhere. This footwear was named after the Greek word sandalon, and the first sandal to be discovered was found in Fort Rock Cave, in the U.S. in the state of Oregon. Story says the ancient Greeks used two types of sandals, the baxeae, which are made of willow leaves, twigs, and fibres, and were mainly used by actors and philosophers; also there were the cothurnus, which is a boot sandal that was used above the middle leg, and was used by tragic actors, horsemen, hunters and by men of rank and authority. On the other hand we have the ancient Egyptians who wore sandals made of palm-leaves and papyrus, and can be seen on the Egyptian statues. These sandals were a part of the characteristic dress of Egyptian priests.

Parts of a Sandal

Sandals have a sole, could be made from any material, rubber, leather, wood, etc. Also it may be held by a thread that can be tangled around the foot as many times as you want. And finally we have the heel, it is not really necessary for a sandal to have a heel, but it can be either low or high heel.

Here you have a few examples of sandals that are used nowadays:

Keds°•

Keds sneakers were the first sneakers generations made ever. Since 1916 Keds is one of the most famous brands from our times. With this company the term “sneaker” became popular, bringing to the top the use of this footwear. One of the main features Keds is recognized for is its noiseless rubber soles that allowed people to sneak up on others. In contrast with Converse, Keds became the preferred footwear for the professional tennis players, being the footwear used at thirteen tennis championships. Although Keds had all this fame, it wasn’t until 1938 when the recognized brand decided to create and launch a line of sneakers just for women known as Kedettes.

 Kedettes were the first high-heeled shoes to offer the same comfort a sneaker could.

Aside from tennis, in 1949 Keds decided to interfere in other sports and that year PRO-Keds were created.  These shoes were designed to attract more athletes, and in this case it was Mr. Basketball, George Mika, who made Keds his favorite footwear.

Although Keds had many publicity and popularity by being the footwear of several athletes it wasn’t until the 1960’s when Keds really became popular. This popularity was won when maby fashion icons decided to wear sneakers such as Audrey Hepburn, Greta Garbo, Katherine Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, and Jackie O; this officially declared Keds as being part of the annals of classic American style.  

After all this gained popularity, Keds became extremely popular among teens. One of the main reasons was the comfort these sneakers offered, but also that they could wear them with shorts, skirts, leggings, almost with everything. Also the popularity was so awesome that Keds appeared on TV shows like Happy Days, Saved by the Bell, Full House, Step by Step, and 7^th Heaven.

Finally, Keds became really famous eventually with many contributions from athletes and celebrities. But behind all of this, the brand also created team with The Breast Cancer Research Foundation to help find a cure for the breast cancer along the world.

Bibliography

Keds Shoes Official Site - The Complete Keds Canvas & Leather Sneaker Collection For Women, Men & Kids. Web. 26 Oct. 2011. <http://www.keds.com/store/SiteController/keds/home>.

One for One Movement♥

Blake Mycoskie is an American traveler who in 2006 went to Argentina and realized he could do something for the world. When he arrived and after being there for a few days he noticed that most of the children living in that country was barefoot, but not for fun, like many of us do, but because they didn't had anything to wear. After going through those terrible images of poor kids living in horrible conditions, he decided to start doing something for them and there is were he created TOMS.



This was a company that would give a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair of shoes purchased, naming this project "One for One Movement." That same year he returned to Argentina with almost ten thousand pairs of shoes to give.



You might be thinking "Why would he wanted to give shoes instead of food, or clothes?" Well according to his web page after doing research he found out that being barefoot was a leading cause of diseases and if the kids were wearing shoes the chance of getting diseases was lower. Also having something to protect your feet prevents cuts and sores, and I'm not talking about the pain this would cause, but about the infections their wounds might get, endangering their health. Finally, the third reason is that in schools it is mandatory to attend with shoes, if you are barefoot you can not come in, and if children can't go to school because of being barefoot, they can't receive an education, losing the opportunity to have an education and prestige.

Wedges♥

One of the most comfortable high heel shoes are the wedges. They were created around 1930, and they are different than other heels because the heel is thick and is joined in one piece with the sole. In 1970 the wedges became very popular; designers would make them more colorful and outrageous making them even more attractive for a girl to buy. The popularity of this heel is amazing, and you might be wondering why are wedges so famous? Well these shoes have many advantages, for instance the gain of height just like the stilettos, but instead the wedges are so much easier to walk in. Another advantage is that wedges do look great wear with any length of skirt or dress, without worrying of looking too uncovered. If we go to the aesthetic side we are going to find that they give us definition and shape to our ankles and legs, making them appear more attractive. And finally if we look into the medical side we can find that according to some doctors, wedges help us to improve our posture when walking, and this gives us a better operation of our body, and also these hells prevent falls, aside of offering more arch support, and reducing foot and ankle problems. Now is time to think when should I wear these heels? Wedges are very practical, you can almost combine them with everything; skirts, shorts, dresses, jeans, ca

To conclude in this section we learned about the pros of using wedges and the utilities we can give them. So guys don’t think being a girl is easy, beauty costs, and we love using high heels even though they aren’t easy to walk in, that’s why they invented wedges.

Slippers

How good do we feel at home? For instance when we arrive we change our clothes to something comfortable, we just relax and try to rest after a hard day of work, but now, what do we do with our shoes? Some people like to be barefoot, but what could be more comfortable than using slippers. Slippers are shoes created to wear inside our house; they are mostly made of soft materials that make them feel restful. If we go back in time and try to find the person who invented slippers we are going to find out that we can’t say somebody did. This footwear has been there since the beginning of shoes. Nowadays slippers are still very common and popular footwear because of the comfort ability it provide us. There are many special brands or companies that specialize in creating and manufacturing this footwear, but there isn’t a very big impact from this company in society like I showed you with Nike and Converse.

Now I’m going to show you some of the different types of slippers, as you are going to see all of them are from our times. Finally I think we all like this footwear because it really puts our foot to rest.

Converse All-Stars★

Converse is a brand created in 1908 by Marquis Mills Converse. He opened his first factory at Malden, Massachusetts, were he created a very comfortable, and simple design that years later would become one of the most wanted shoes. This kind of footwear was taken by the basketball players as their official shoes, and since then they are called “Chuck Taylor All Star Converse” in honor of Chuck Taylor, a very talented and famous player who showed his love for this shoes.  

Even though there was a tilt towards the use of the shoes in basketball, they were created mostly for the use of kids and young people, but this doesn’t stop adults from buying it.

Aside from the sneakers, Converse started manufacturing their own accessories such as socks, hats, jackets, t-shirts, backpacks, and many others; which are also very famous and useful, and even more when there is so many people loving this brand.

During the 60’s Converse were classified as being shoes for “hippies” but nowadays we can see this ideology has changed, now these sneakers are one of the most popular, and can be used by everyone. There are many types, and colors, but mainly Converse use solid colors such as the followings:

*Converse was very successful during its first years, but in 2003 they declared bankrupt and had to sell their company to Adidas and Nike.*

Bibliography

"InsideHoops.com - Converse History - Chuck Taylor history of Converse and Chuck Taylors." InsideHoops.com - NBA Basketball News, Rumors - Pro, College Basketball, High School Hoops. 14 Sept. 2011 <http://www.insidehoops.com/converse-history.shtml>.

Nike, Inc.

Nike, Inc. is a company founded on January 25, 1964. Its original name is “Blue Ribbon Sports,” and the founders of this now so famous brand were Bill Bowerman and Philip Knight. On May 30, 1978, the company became Nike, Inc. officially, being Philip Knight the only owner. The name of the brand was taken after the Greek winged goddess of victory, which was suggested by one of Knight’s friend. The Nike logo, now one of the most powerful logos in the world, was bought from Carolyn Davidson for only $35, which is nothing compared to what the logo means nowadays.

Nike Company focuses exclusively on designing shoes, almost all of them are sneakers, and after they hire factories and the shoes are produced, they invest in the advertising and the marketing to make the sneakers look as appealing as they can be so people can get interested and buy them.

We can find this brand almost everywhere in the world, which tells us that is a worldwide highly recognized brand. We, people from Mexico, are very used to go to the US and buy our clothes, but if you didn’t knew most of these clothes aren’t made in there, and this is the case of Nike. The main headquarter of Nike’s factories is located in Beaverton, Oregon. Besides the main headquarter, Nike hires many others factories around the world, but the main producers of these famous sneakers are located in China, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

Each footwear might be different on the outside, but the fundamental pieces that make their production possible are:
-The top of the shoe (upper)
-The midsole
-The part that protects the foot
-The outsole (the Sole)

Although Nike is now a recognized brand, there have been many criticisms against the company because of the rumor of using third-world countries to produce their shoes besides of being accused of allowing child labor. Even there are some bad gossips going around, like the accusations mentioned above, I think Nike is one of the most successful brands and hopefully it will remain like that.

To conclude, I just want to say I'm glad I did this post of a brand that produces the type of shoe men wear, because as you can see, my posts have only been about shoes girls wear, high heels, and falts. So I hope you enjoyed it.

Did You Know?
The experimentation and the design process for each new model, sometimes takes up to 3 years.

 

Kerns, Michelle. "How Are Nike Shoes Produced? | eHow.com." EHow | How to Videos, Articles & More - Trusted Advice for the Curious Life | eHow.com. 01 Sept. 2011 <http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4987751_how-nike-shoes-produced.html>.

Video!!

Love her shoes♥

Ballerina Shoes!!♥

No, did you thought I was talking about ballet? Actually, this is how we also call all those shoes that are "flat" and as the descriptive word says, they are also know as "flats." This footwear is very popular when you want to wear something comfortable, closed, and without heel, and we can find it almost everywhere. The ballerina shoes are very simple, they include only the sole, the inside, and the outside of the shoe, it does not have heel, or any other supplements, like we saw in high heels. Nowadays we have many kinds of ballerina shoes, they are of different colors, material, and shape; to prove you this I'm going to show you some of the "flats" I have.

This is my favorite pair of flats. I love the bow in the tiptoe, and is important to say that this color is very combinible, so you can use it with almost any of your clothes.

You might be thinking this is almost the same pair of shoes you just saw above, but No!! They are very alike, but if you look carefully this one has different details, like the ribbon around the shoe, also the color is a little bit lighter, and the bow is completly different; this one has a little more shape and is well defined.

This flats are differents than the ones I showed you before. The shape of the shoe is well defined, thing the ones before didn't had. This kind of shape is the most common, and as we can see they are very simple, they don't have many details but they still look pretty and girly. Because of the color we can infer they can be used with jeans, or anything blue.

Finally I want to show you the flats I used to go to school. They are black because the regulation of the school stated girls and boys should wear black footwear, also we can see their shape is define, like the blues I just showed you, but these ones have details in the tiptoe, that are trying to create the ilusion of a little buckle holding a few strips.

So as we can see the variety of ballerina shoes is very wide, we can find many shapes and colors, but we can also find those with little details that make them look prettier. We can use this footwear for almost anything, for school, to go out with your friends, when going to the mall, or just when you want to wear something comfortable and nice!!

high heels doesn't come from the mall...

The History

The need of gaining height because of the weather and street conditions was the responsible of the invention of the now so famous, high heels. These kind of shoes weren't product of neither vanity nor beauty like they are now, but they were very useful when the wearer wanted to cross a mud puddle without getting dirt so to say. The first elevated shoe was made in 1400 in Turkey, and it was called the chopine. These shoes were made out of wood or cork and some styles were banded with metal. Some of the pieces were covered with leather, brocades, and included jewel-embroidered velvet.



The Manufacturing Process

When making a shoe you can either handmade it or you can use a machine. In this case I’m going to explain the process factories use when they “build” many shoes at the same time using a machine. First they start cutting in pieces all the material they are going to need; sometimes it can be leather, wood, plastic, etc. Then when they cut all these pieces the machine pulls the piece of material tightly over the last, and thermal cement is used to hold it together temporarily. High heels are made in three sections; the sole, the upper and the heel. After the three sections are put together by the computer or machine, it is transfered to another one. In this second machine they add strong cement to bond the parts together and then it is pressed for almost 15 seconds, so it can stick together. Then the heel itself may be attached with nails, tacks, cement, staples, or many other ways, of course it has to depend on the style of the shoe they are making. Finally they add label and stamp size notations to the insides of the shoes, they are stuffed and wrapped and put in a box ready to deliver or sell.



We can see that the heels we all girls love nowadays weren’t supposed to have this purpose in life, but today heels are blessed for the elegance they inspire and the improvement of appearance they deliver us.




Bibliography-
"How high heel is made - material, manufacture, making, history, used, parts, components, steps, product, machine, History, Raw Materials, Design, The Manufacturing Process of high heel." How Products Are Made. 16 Aug. 2011 http://www.madehow.com/Volume-5/High-Heel.html.