Shoe historian Elizabeth Semmelhack says there’s a stereotype that footwear is somehow a woman’s domain. But consider this: in 2014, men’s athletic shoes accounted for nearly twice the sales of women’s dress shoes in U.S. stores. Over the last century, sneakers have symbolized performance and affluence, street style and high-end fashion. Friday, Semmelhack is our guide for a history of sneakers. We’ll talk about innovations, trends, and what each shoe tells us about a particular moment in time. (Rebroadcast)
Elizabeth Semmelhack is Senior Curator at Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Canada. She's author of Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture [Indiebound|Amazon]
