Interchangeable shoelaces from the Nike and Off-White collaboration
The Nike and Off-White Blazer Mids next to the interchangeable laces. Source: https://www.juberry.com/review-ten-nike-blazer-mid-off-white-feet-video/Edward’s Nike and Off-White Prestos with green and white laces. Source: Edward Vuong
Nike’s retail store in Soho, New York City
The exterior of the Nike store in Soho, New York City. Source: https://www.gq.com/story/nike-new-york-city-store-sohoTesting Nike shoes in the store’s mini basketball court. Source: https://www.gq.com/story/nike-new-york-city-store-soho
Adam, Hajo, and Adam D. Galinsky. “Enclothed Cognition,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 48, no. 4 2012, pp.918-925.
Barthes, Roland. The Fashion System. University of California Press, 1990.
Barnard, Malcolm. Fashion as Communication. Routledge, 2002.
Conway, Michael. “You Can Make Any Sneakers Look Like the Virgil Abloh x Nike ‘The Ten’ Collab With These Laces.” Footwear News, http://footwearnews.com/2017/focus/athletic-outdoor/virgil-abloh-nike-the-ten-sneakers-laces-455259/. Accessed 24 Feb. 2018.
Cova, Bernard, et al. Consumer Tribes. Butterworth-Heinemann, 2007.
Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Penguin, 1990.
Gruen, Thomas W., et al. “eWOM: The Impact of Customer-to-Customer Online Know-How Exchange on Customer Value and Loyalty.” Journal of Business Research, vol. 59, no. 4, Elsevier, Apr. 2006, pp. 449–56, doi:10.1016/J.JBUSRES.2005.10.004.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, and Donalt A. Landes. Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge, 2014.
“Nike’s ComplexCon Booth Encouraged Creative Expression” Youtube, uploaded by Complex New, 6 Nov 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1uSuMYHHyM.
Prahalad, C. K., and Venkat Ramaswamy. “Co-Creation Experiences: The Next Practice in Value Creation.” Journal of Interactive Marketing, vol. 18, no. 3, 2004, pp. 5-14.
Solis, Brian. What’s the Future of Business?: Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiences. John Wiley & Sons, 2013.
Theng So, Jing, Andrew Grant Parsons, and Sheau-Fen Yap. “Corporate Branding, Emotional Attachment and Brand Loyalty: The Case of Luxury Fashion Branding.” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, vol. 17, no. 4, 2013, pp. 403-423.
Music Citations
Karud, Joakim. “That Day.” Youtube, uploaded by AudioLibrary, 21 July 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDT00lBAG2g&list=RDtnV_PH26SVU&index=9.
—- “By The Croft.” Youtube, uploaded by AudioLibrary, 18 Sept 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnV_PH26SVU.
“Your legs are lovelier in nylons.” – DuPont advertisement in Harper’s Bazaar, April 1957, p. 10
Upon carefully flipping through magazines from the last century at the ROM library (which I had not known of until recently) I came across an interesting advertisement. Within the first few pages of a Harper’s Bazaar, April 1957 copy (v. 90, no. 2957), was a colour printed advertisement for DuPont nylon (Fig. 1). It was interesting to me because this advertisement features a familiar material common in today’s fashion. I was intrigued to learn more about it, so I did some research.
Figure 1. DuPont nylon advertisement, Harper’s Bazaar April 1957, p. 10. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives. Photo by: Emilie Chan
Harper’s Bazaar
Since its inception in 1867, Harper’s Bazaar soon became America’s leading fashion and mass circulated magazine in the 1950s (“Catalina Announces”). The publication was sold in America, Canada, and London (Fig. 2b). The first half of each magazine within the decade consisted of advertisements, followed by “fiction and features” (Fig. 2b). Selling at 60 cents per copy in the 1950s, this American publication targeted middle and upper class women (Covert 27). This particular copy (Fig. 2a) is part of the publication’s 90th anniversary (Fig. 2b).
Figure 2a. Front cover, Harper’s Bazaar April 1957. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives. Photo by: Emilie ChanFigure 2b. Table of contents, Harper’s Bazaar April 1957. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives. Photo by: Emilie Chan
The United States in the 1950s
Figure 3. Children’s Book from 1955: the Happy Family. Source: http://envisioning113.rssing.com/chan-19524258/all_p1.html
At this time, many people were enjoying the post-war boom. The economy allowed for a dramatic expansion of the middle class, thus allowing more people the ability to consume at higher rates (“The 1950s”). Many young, heterosexual, American families moved to the suburbs (“The 1950s”). Women within the expanded middle class were urged to leave the workforce to embrace motherhood and the role of a wife (Marias 138), depicted in Figure 3. Although this concept of a women’s role was not new to history, some women at home were dissatisfied—they yearned for life outside of the home (Marias 139). Television dramatically rose in popularity and accessibility—production in 1948 at 250,000 units leapt to 40 million units by 1955 (Marias 181). Although fewer than 6 percent of units produced were not in use, one in five inhabitants had access to a television (Marias 181). The power of this technology spread images and reinforced ideologies of the “American way of life” to the masses (186).
While many women were enjoying freedom in fashion, the ideal beautiful woman was Caucasian, slender, and graceful (Marias 152). Although inequality in race was increasingly publicly scrutinized, the “ideal” remained predominately white (“The 1950s”). Women were often more interested in dressing to attract and appeal to men, than to impress other women (Marias 154). There were three common ways to shop for clothes—walking down store-lined streets, going to a shopping centre, or browsing a catalogue and purchasing through mail order (Marias 67). An advertisement like this (Fig. 1) aims to raise awareness and evoke a desire for DuPont branded nylon products.
Developed by American company DuPont in the 1930s, nylon soon became commercially produced by 1939 (“Our Company”). During World War II, nylon was used in parachutes and chords (“Science of Plastics”) (Fig. 4). Post war, the material was applied to various consumer products, famously women’s stockings (“Science of Plastics”). Trickling into the 1940s, there was growing unease about synthetic fibres as DuPont advertised nylon as a magical material that would never run or break (Meikle 127). To combat this fear, advertising strategy drastically shifted focus onto the aesthetic aspects of nylon instead of its functional qualities (Meikle 128). Nylon became a “textile prodigy” that could produce “lovely legs” (Handley 40). By 1946, nylon was accepted by the mass market, accelerated through female consumers, and a new substitute for natural materials such as silk (Handley 49). However, by the 1950s, DuPont began facing slower growth in sales (“Our Company”). Competition within the generic textile fiber industry was extremely high, and the abundance of fabric choices were steadily increasing (Handley 75). Branding became key to product differentiation (Handley 75).
Advertisement Analysis
The Image
Figure 5. Main image on advertisement, Harper’s Bazaar April 1957, p. 10. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives. Photo by: Emilie Chan
It is clear that this advertisement aims to position DuPont branded nylon as a desirable material for women’s stockings (since DuPont only manufactured textile materials) (Fig. 7). Portrayed is a presumably middle-aged man dressed in a suit, and a women in a colour -coordinated outfit precariously walking down a flight of stairs. These two characters depict the social ideal of the 1950s— this advertisement suggests that they live in a house, are likely in a lasting heterosexual marriage, and fall within the middle class.
Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist, suggests that there are three forms of capital that determines an individual’s position within the field of fashion—economic, social, and cultural (Bourdieu 243). The two characters seem to possess some economic capital, belonging to the middle class, based on the house they are placed in and the image they depict. The man casually talking on the phone shows social capital to a certain degree. To further the woman’s social capital, her legs are modestly caved inwards, suggesting subtlety and etiquette, yet still able to appeal to her male counterpart. Evidently, this image depicts the ideal woman the Bazaar’s female readership desired.
Within cultural capital, there are three states—embodied, objectified, and institutionalized (Bourdieu 243). The objectified state is represented by material objects, cultural goods that can be acquired with economic capital to gain social power and distinction (Bourdieu 243). Here, the ideal woman is walking down the stairs in nylon stockings, successfully garnering the whimsical glance of her male counterpart. This demonstrates the cultural capital DuPont nylon stockings, a simple branded material, can offer women. Women are also offered an opportunity to gain cultural capital in an embodied state, successfully appealing to their male counterparts through self-improvement via branded clothing in a relatively modest, subtle way.
Figure 6. Playboy magazine cover, June 1956. Source: https://www.thepaperframer.com/Playboy56.php
In direct contrast, Playboy, an entertainment magazine for men first published in 1953, was increasing in popularity. It had expanded its popular Playmate double page spread to a triple page centrefold in 1956 (“Our History”). With the help of nylons, women were offered a product that could help them compete against Playboy magazines and models, with the help of fashion. Here, fashion and way of dressing is connected to moral values, a characteristic of the modern stage of sartorial representation suggested by Efrat Tseȅlon (219) inspired by (sociologist by training) Jean Baudrillard’s (Tseȅlon 215) signification analysis (Baudrillard 88).
Tseȅlon suggests that there are three stages of sartorial representation—pre-modern, modern, and post-modern (Tseȅlon 218). Within the modern stage, technological developments increase production efficiency, thereby lowering production costs and widening the availability of clothing previously exclusively accessible to the upper class (Tseȅlon 219). Dress no longer represents status because of the homogeneity of style, but rather, is reflected an individual’s gender and other temporal variables such as mood, time of day, season, or occasion (Tseȅlon 220). Revealed in the text within the 1957 advertisement, nylon stockings are framed as the ideal product for any of the aforementioned variables. It states that “there’s a just-perfect stocking for every occasion from a walk in the country to a night out of town” (Fig. 7). This reinforces this advertisement’s place within the modern stage. Nylon stockings were available to a wide customer base and could be used to reflect any occasion or personal characteristic. The advertisement also reflects Baudrillard’s idea of consumption as a characteristic of desire for the maintenance of an individual’s own image, that can only be fulfilled by objects, in this case, nylon as fashion (Tseȅlon 216).
The Text
Figure 7. Main text within advertisement, Harper’s Bazaar April 1957, p. 10. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives. Photo by: Emilie Chan
Although this advertisement is largely made up of a single image, the text plays an equally important role. According to Roland Barthes, well known for his semiotic and linguistics studies (“Roland Barthes”), suggests that “written clothing” in the form of captions can further inform the audience (The Fashion System 13). Upon examining the image, it is clear that the woman is receiving admiration from her male counterpart. This is supplemented by the text: “You’re the object of admiration in today’s glamourous nylon. How beautifully they reveal your natural perfection. How happily they conceal any little imperfection” (Fig. 7). Women viewing this advertisement now discover that the ideal woman in the image has simply concealed her “flaws” to create the ideal, perfect, and beautiful image. Barthes argues that advertising sells a myth, a fake idea, of the fairy tale consumers can potentially experience (The Elements of Semiology 178) through the purchase of nylon products . In this case, DuPont is selling the “myth” that women can enhance their natural qualities, while covering their imperfections by wearing specifically DuPont nylons to successfully appeal to their male counterparts. The large caption stating: “Your legs look lovelier in nylons” further communicates the ability nylons possess to enhance a woman’s image and attractiveness, supplementing the picture above it.
Figure 8. DuPont logo and slogan, Harper’s Bazaar April 1957, p. 10. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives. Photo by: Emilie Chan
DuPont’s slogan, “Better things for better living…through chemistry” (Fig. 8) adds to the cultural capital a woman can gain from buying DuPont nylons. They claim that purchasing DuPont nylon stockings will give women admiration. From understanding the context of the advertisement and thereby already displaying a degree of cultural capital, women are offered insight to gain additional cultural capital through purchasing DuPont nylons, an exciting high-tech material from the company that arguably stated the nylon revolution. This exemplifies Entwistle and Rocamora’s notion that cultural capital can be displayed through appropriate, “in-the-know” outfits (Tseȅlon 240).
When I first saw this advertisement, I did not think much of it. As usual, when examining artifacts from the past, I did not realize how much more I could understand through learning the economic, technological, and social context behind the advertisement.
Today, there is evidently greater focus on visual images in paper advertising compared to the advertisements of the 1950s. Knowing that text can effectively enhance and supplement understanding and meanings behind an image, do you think this shift in paper advertising is positive?
Barthes, Roland, The Elements of Semiology. Translated by Annette Lavers and Colin Smith, Hill and Wang, 1973.
—- The Fashion System. Translated by Matthew Ward and Richard Howard, University of California Press, 1990.
Baudrillard, Jean. Symbolic Exchange and Death. Sage Publications, 1993.
Bourdieu, Pierre. “The Forms of Capital.” Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by John G. Richardson, Greenwood Publishing Group Inc., 1986, pp. 241-258.
“Catalina Announces Biggest Advertising Campaign in its Entire Thirty-Six-Year History!” Women’s Wear Daily, vol. 68, no. 5, Jan 07, 1944, pp. 31, ProQuest, https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/docview/1653877427?pq-origsite=summon.
Covert, Tawnya J. Adkins. Manipulating Images: World War II Mobilization of Women through Magazine Advertising. Lexington Books, 2011.
Handley, Susannah. Nylon: The Story of a Fashion Revolution: A Celebration of Design from Art Silk to Nylon and Thinking Fibres. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Marias, Julián. America in the Fifties and Sixties: Julián Marias on the United States. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1972.
Meikle, Jeffrey L. American Plastic: A Cultural History. Rutgers University of Press, 1995.
“Our Company: History.” DuPont. http://www.dupont.com/corporate-functions/our-company/dupont-history.html. Accessed March 28 2018.
“Our History.” PlayboyEnterprises. http://www.playboyenterprises.com/about/history/. Accessed March 28 2018.
“Roland Barthes.” Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Roland-Gerard-Barthes. Accessed March 28 2018.
“Science of Plastics.” Chemical Heritage Foundation. https://www.sciencehistory.org/science-of-plastics. Accessed March 28 2018.
Tseȅlon, Efrat. “Jean Baudrillard: Post-modern Fashion as the End of Meaning.” Thinking through Fashion: A Guide to Key Theorists, edited by Agnès Rocamora and Anneke Smelik, 2016, pp. 215-232.
When winter strikes in Toronto, many Torontonians are often found bustling through the sidewalks in fall or winter shoes to combat the snow and the sludge. For me this past winter season, those shoes were my new Timberland boots, bought on a whim and they have caused me no buyer’s remorse. As I watched the sidewalks and yellow-green grass emerge from melting ice, I was compelled to reflect on my Timberlands—what is the history behind them, and what do the boots mean to me?
Old marketing poster featuring the classic 6-inch Timberland workboots. Source:https://kith.com/pages/timberland-journal
The History of Timberland
Timberland produces both outdoor and action sports footwear, apparel, and accessories for men, women, and children (“VF Corporation 2016 Annual Report”). A lesser-mentioned footwear line, Timberland PRO, produces robust work-boots for the toughest job sites (“Timberland PRO”). Timberland is now owned by VF Corporation, owner of other well-known outdoor and action sports brands including Vans, North Face, and Jansport (“VF Corporation 2016 Annual Report”). However, Timberland carried a strong brand reputation even prior to VF Corporation’s acquisition (Encylopedia.com).
Founded in 1952, it began with father, sons, and half ownership of the Abington Shoe Company in Massachusetts, United States (“Yellow Boot”). There, they produced and sold handmade footwear for various discount outlet and store house brands (Encylopedia.com). After developing new crafting techniques, acquiring new machinery, and upgrading to a new rubber sole manufactured by Goodyear, the iconic Timberland boot was born in 1973 (“Yellow Boot”). Targeting blue-collar construction workers in New England, the boot was durable, waterproof, and had a complex manufacturing process (“Brands: Timberland”). It was one of the only boots of its kind in the market at the time, thus sold at a premium (“Yellow Boot”). After the boot’s continuous success, and the family’s full ownership of the Abington Shoe Company, the business was renamed as “The Timberland Company” in 1978, representing durability and functionality (Encylopedia.com).
Within the following 20 years, Timberland exponentially rose in popularity, thus in sales (Encylopedia.com). Priced at $60 USD in the early 1980s (VintagePaperAds.com), the brand reached an unexpected international market—the Italian fashion accessory market—largely attributed to a well-recognized Italian goods distributer, Giuseppe Veronesi (“Timberland Blog”). By the early 1990s, the iconic 6-inch work-boot was co-opted by the American hip-hop community (Encylopedia.com). As gangsta rap became glamourized, prominent hip-hop artists such as Boot Camp Clik and the Wu-Tang Clan began wearing the work-boot as early as 1993 (Encylopedia.com). They opened up a new market for Timberland, acting as “unauthorized endorsers” for the brand (Encylopedia.com). Despite initial resistance from management to expand the company’s market, artists continued to purchase the work-boots, their style eventually trickling up to the more welcomed mainstream market (Walker, 84). The Timberland brand was linked to authenticity, suggesting “an American aesthetic that combined physical labour with the great outdoors” (Semmelhack 154).
Boot Camp Clik wearing Timberlands in 1993. Source: http://www.complex.com/style/2012/09/the-25-best-dressed-crews-in-hip-hop-history/roc-a-fella
Hip-Hop and Timberland Boots as Fashion
The Nike Air Superdome 1991, bearing a similar aesthetic compared to Timberlands. Source: http://kicksdeals.com/gallery/15-nike-acg-models-wed-like-to-see-return/nike-air-revaderchi/
Hip-hop culture, unified in aesthetic, stood for self-expression through both music and fashion (Brantley 247). By the 1990s, brands such as Nike, Adidas, and Reebok began producing various versions of footwear lines emulating the rugged hip-hop aesthetic (Price 38). According to Cova et al., consumers grapple and blend brands and products with their own lives, essentially altering them (4). Commercial culture becomes part of their cultural, social, and self-identity (4). Hip-hop artists perceived Timberlands as strong and durable, both functionally and representationally (Brantley 248). The boots, originally made for tough job sites (now fulfilled by Timberland PRO), were able to withstand urban concrete, barbed wire, and other varied urban terrain (Brantley 248). They also represented the authenticity, aggression, and resilience in the war between black youth and America (Encylopedia.com).
Erving Goffman, a sociologist and writer, suggests that identity is “a dramatic effect arising diffusely from a scene that is presented” (253). It is the result of repeated behaviour and actions understood within an interactive social process (Goffman 253). When hip-hop culture co-opted the 6-inch work boot into their outfits, it became part of self-expression and another building block to the group’s identity. Much like Cova et al. suggest, these artists incorporated Timberlands to their lived experiences (4), physically enclothing their bodies and becoming part of an iconic style and identity, as Goffman suggests (253).
Timberland Boots in Today’s Fashion
Serayah McNeill sporting denim overalls and light blue Timberlands. Source: http://www.instyle.com/news/celebrities-wearing-timberland-boots-coachella
Now, celebrities and everyday streetwalkers alike wear Timberlands and all their variations as items of popular fashion. Much like Dr. Martens in the 1990s, Timberlands are now offering more colours and patterns (“Yellow Boot”), positioning the brand and its boots as a component of urban fashion “costumes” within the boot marketplace. (Semmelhack 154). Cova et al. suggest that consumers “work within the staging that brands and companies have built” (10), ultimately interpreting and creating their own meanings of the brand. To a certain degree, each person is using the shoe and brand to express and communicate a certain aspect of their visual identity. At Coachella last year, celebrities such as Hailey Baldwin and Josephine Skriver, were seen wearing Timberlands to the outdoor spring music festival (Bahou, “The Unexpected Shoe Trend”). Here, Serayah McNeill pairs a half-buttoned jean overall short with a light blue 6-inch Timberland boot. Far from the historically intended worksite use, this celebrity incorporates the outdoorsy yet urban essence of the boots with her individual urban flare. She is merging her individual brand interpretations with her personal sense of style to construct a deliberate image and aesthetic at the music festival. In my opinion, she looks tough, adventurous, yet feminine.
My Timberland Boots
Side view of my Timberlands. Source: Emilie Chan
Inspired by Mida and Kim’s The Dress Detective, I set out to perform a closer reading of my boots to further enhance my research. I own a pair of women’s 6-inch black Timberland boots. They are made of nubuck (a type of leather), and have padded leather collars similar to most classic Timberlands. This one in particular, the “Joslin,” has low-profile outsoles, leaving a less robust appearance that most would describe as more feminine. Contrary to assumption, this particular boot is not advertised as waterproof. A special spray was later applied to provide water resistance.
I wore these boots through snowstorms and sludgy days. Some of this year’s scuffs, salt stains, and dirt still stick to the surface of each boot. A few crinkles have formed on the vamp of my boots, a form of physical proof of the steps I have taken this winter season. Since I have only owned these boots for less than one season, the condition of the heels remain in good condition.
Front view of my Timberlands. Source: Emilie ChanThe crinkles on my Timberlands. Source: Emilie ChanThe bottom of my Timberlands. Source: Emilie Chan
The Timberland Brand
Timberland describes itself as a brand that “outfits consumers for everyday adventure in the city, countryside, and everywhere in between” (“Brands: Timberland”). It boasts stylish, finely crafted products that are durable and functional. VF Corporation is committed to being a consumer and retail centric organization, their efforts reflected in a 15 percent growth in B2C (business-to-consumer) sales in the last few quarters of 2017 (“Fourth Quarter 2017”). This being said, overall sales figures for this brand were not particularly impressive in 2017, outshined by Vans. The company is now in the works of re-energizing the brand (“Fourth Quarter 2017”). Within the Toronto shoe market, direct competitors of the classic 6-inch Timberland boot include high tops and short boots from Sorel, UGG, Dr. Martens, and Blundstone. Sorel’s primary value proposition lies in its functionality—an insulated and waterproof shell (Sorelfootwear.com). UGG, producing a variation of styles, boasts functionality and its premium brand name (UGG.com). Perhaps the most similar in visual aesthetics compared to the 6-inch Timberland boot is the laced up, ankle high Dr. Martens boot, rich with cultural history (Semmelhack 152), quality materials, craftsmanship, and style (DrMartens.com). The widely popular Blundstone brand offers comfort and craftsmanship (Blundstone.ca). For a visual comparison between these boots, refer to Figure 1.
Figure 1: Toronto’s 2017 Popular Short Fall/Winter Boots. Source: Emilie Chan
In 2015, Timberland launched a marketing campaign titled “The Modern Trail.” It aimed to persuade customers that Timberland products are made for all adventures, big or small. The brand encouraged customers take and share pictures of their experiences while wearing Timberland footwear, through social media with the hashtag “#ModernTrail” as a form of documentation and community engagement (“Made for the Modern”).
Images from the #ModernTrail campaign, by Timberland. Source: https://www.instagram.com/timberland/
On a deeper level of analysis, customers were being encouraged to see and experience objects as things that contain memories and emotions—evocative objects, much like Sherry Turkle suggests (9). Objects, in this case Timberland gear, are not merely products with functional aspects, but can bring together thoughts and feelings. Products, like Timberland boots, are part of the wearer’s physical and emotional (modern trail) experience—this makes the boots “priceless.” Suggested by Igor Kopytoff, “its pricelessness makes it in some sense more valuable than the amount of money it can fetch” (82). This exemplifies Kopytoff’s theory of singularization, moving away from a Marxist view of commoditization where everything is defined by labour, profits, and how much one can buy an item for (Sullivan 38). Consumers eventually singularize Timberland boots because they are evocative objects that cannot simply be replaced by even an identical pair of boots.
My Perspective on the Timberland Brand
My father’s Timberlands. Source: Emilie Chan
Although my Timberland boots were bought without much thought, I had a subconscious trust for the Timberland brand. I grew up watching my father collect shoes, each pair now, on average, reaching 20 years old. Many of them are now worn in the soles and heels, materials tearing at the edges. Of all the shoes he owns, his black and brown 6-inch Timberlands are in the best shape and hold many childhood memories. In the harsh winters that Toronto once faced, I remember my father trekking through the snow in his Timberland boots. On camping trips, I remember him hiking in the muddy forests and on rocky cliff-sides in those very boots with ease as I struggled behind in whatever running shoe I owned at the time. Engrained in me from childhood is an understanding that Timberland boots are not only durable, but is a key tool for moving through rough terrains. My father’s boots, with a thicker heel and seemingly more durable construct, shows its wear and memories in the many crinkles of the smoother nubuck material.
Hajo Adam (a business professor) and Adam Galinsky (a social psychologist) suggest that the experience of wearing clothes can trigger associated abstract concepts and symbolic meanings, termed “enclothed cognition” (919). Since the 1970s, Timberland boots have always upheld their branded functionality, durability, and quality (“Yellow Boot”). Growing up, I learned to believe Timberlands can withstand any type of environmental challenge. Throughout the past winter season, I painstakingly trudged through ice, wet snow, and black sludge in my Timberlands. Perhaps it was the boot itself, but assessing the construction of the model, likely just my enclothed cognition, that made these journeys easier.
Although I am not particularly adventurous with my Timberlands, I know they represent more than simply black boots—they come with rich cultural history. My Timberland boots may not be as robust as my father’s boots, nor have they experienced the same amount of wear, but they hold my memories. Through time, my boots will continue to collect different physical reminders of my journeys via stains, rips, and crinkles. My Timberland boots are thought provoking and carry my memories.
Will learning new knowledge or historical understanding of an object affect the relationship between the owner of the object, and the object itself? If so, how will this affect the process of singularization?
Bahou, Olivia. “The Unexpected Shoe Trend We’re Seeing All Over Coachella.” InStyle, 18 Apr, 2017, http://www.instyle.com/news/celebrities-wearing-timberland-boots-coachella. Accessed 16 Feb 2018.
Brantley, Vanessa T. Hip-Hop Clothing: The Meaning of Subcultural Style, The Florida State University, Ann Arbor, 1999, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global, http://ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/docview/304510440?accountid=13631.
Cova, Bernard, et al. Consumer Tribes. Elsevier, 2007.
Dr. Martens. The Originals, 2018, http://www.drmartens.com/ca/. Accessed 16 Feb. 2018.
Encyclopedia.com. The Timberland Company, 2006, https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/economics-business-and-labor/businesses-and-occupations/timberland-company. Accessed 18 Feb. 2018.
Adam, Hajo, and Adam D. Galinsky. “Enclothed Cognition,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 48, no. 4 2012, pp.918-925.
Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Penguin, 1990.
Kopytoff, Igor. “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process.” The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Ed. Arjun Appadurai. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986. 64-91.
Price, Emmett. Hip Hop Culture. ABC-CLIO, 2006.
Semmelhack, Elizabeth. Shoes: The Meaning of Style. Reaktion Books Ltd., 2017.
