The tennis shoe has been called the only new style of shoe to be invented in the past three hundred years. The athletic shoe was first introduced in the 1860s as the plimsoll, a lightweight canvas shoe with a rubber sole for playing lawn croquet. The athletic shoe has since evolved into not only a high-tech piece of sports equipment but also a sign of status and an expression of individual personality. Often called "tennies" or "sneakers," tennis shoes are no longer just for sports. They are a major part of the modern American wardrobe.

In 1916, a shoe company called Keds produced a lightweight canvas and rubber shoe that remained the basic pattern of the tennis shoe for the next fifty years. In the late 1960s, the customized athletic shoe first appeared, when University of Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman (1911–1999) began experimenting with new designs for...