What ever happened to Kangaroos or at least the idea of being able to hold change for kids or in my case the key to my apt. when I go for a run. Why is there no function in footwear? Are shoe designers not joggers?
Do they not see the need for an ingenious way to store a key or swipe-card? I guess this is a question I should pose to sport radio/mps designers as well.
Same question here. The zippers on kangaroos were so small, like #3, they were so hard to use, and by the time you did get something in them, the pocket was too flat to get it back out. Fannypacks just scream UNDERCOVER COP!!! or GRANDMA WITH HER MEDICINE!! Here’s how I work around it. Wear 2 pairs of socks, then I can put my ID on one leg between the layers, keys on the other leg. Do Kangaroos need to come back, new and improved?
roos are back, go to footlocker, they are in re-production
while some people loved the pockets, they are huge legal liabilities, I know it sounds lame, but people are very sensitive to their feet. If the foot where to get caught somwhere and a key in the pocket injured someone, all hell would break loose. If you don’t believe me try this on…
When Nike realeased shox, they promo’d it with the famously dumb boing comercials ( Boing, boing, boing ). When one woman excitedly got her first pair, she was disapointed they didn’t make the boing noise. In fact she was so emotionaly distraught over it that she sued the company.
Shox was a 15 year project looking for a way to more evenly distribute forces that are strongest in the heal upon impact during heavy activity. It pretty much changed the way shoes are constructed. It would have saved us a lot of money if we knew this lady only wanted her shoe to boing…
Innovation in footwear is mainly concentrated in several areas: fit, cusioning, traction. That said, you guys are right, more could be done if designers considered it as part of the entire body, and not just a foot covering.
I can name four manufacturers who have integrated some kind of usefuland functional pocket into the tongues of their shoes or sandals and while they all truely fulfilled the need of useful uses for carrying things the message was lost to the customer. or it was seen as a gimmick. When sales marketing, or retailers saw them, they either forgot to mention the beneficial uses of the pockets, or called them gimmicks by referring to Kangaroos or insinuatingd that they would carry “your stash” or items that did not want to found.
Most customers have come to believe that a shoe is solely just a fashion accessory, and comfort and function are secondary. They don’t view it as a beneficial, functional object that can actually improve your life on a daily basis. Its not that designers haven’t considered it that way, in fact they have, its just that the story they tell is often lost in the communication to the customer. Hence the confusion over the “boing” of the Shox and the usefullness of a pocket on shoes.
For example the Nike Free concept in footwear, where the foot drives the fit and function of the shoe as opposed to the shoe driving the fit and function of the foot. It will be needed by someone who understands how the foot works in relation to the legs and the rest of the body. Its brilliantly simple, but communicating its true intent is difficult. Therefore its not going to get embraced as widely without the application of a marketing gimmick it “simplify” the message, on intent.
In a round abouit way its not that there is no function in footwear, rather its how a want or need is addressed as a function, how that function is communcated, and if the user is attuned to and actually looking for that function. Ideally its communicated through the form, materials and construction; and not as a gimmick.
Please tell me that the judge fined them (her and shyster counsel) for frivolous lawsuit
I don’t know… which probably means it was settled out of court.