This 4-star review of the Eckhartz Press book "Signature Shoes" appeared on the website, The Guy Who Reviews Sports Books...
While most people have either heard of or owned a pair of Air Jordan’s, many may not know that that was far from the first shoe that was the signature shoe of a well-known athlete. That distinction went back a couple decades and the history of signature shoes for athletes is described in this interesting book by Ryan Trembath.
The practice of attaching an athlete’s name to a shoe began well before Nike did this for Michael Jordan. It wasn’t an uncommon practice for tennis players (Stan Smith, Ille Natase and Billie Jean King, for example) or soccer players, especially the great Pele, to have signature shoes. At that time, the two major shoe companies doing so were Adidas and Puma. Trembath gives the reader a brief but informative history of those two rivals and others who soon joined in the business such as Nike, Reebok and PONY.
By the 1990’s the market for such shoes became oversaturated and that is about where the history lesson in the book ends, but there is more to read than just shoes. There are also interesting facts about many of the athletes whose names were attached to the shoes as well as some pop culture tidbits tossed in at various points in the book.
At a quick 154 pages, this book is not an exhaustive history of shoes or sports, but does give the reader a very interesting and entertaining look at the industry of the signature shoe and is worth a look for any reader interested in this topic.
I wish to thank Mr. Trembath for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
