Chapter 46 Chapter 11 Extraordinary 2007 (8)

Although there are not many hardcore players like Xie Fei, in China, more sneaker geeks have already started to act.On many Sneaker forums, you can see Sneaker posting his collections full of houses, which is a sight to behold.At present, there are many special Sneaker forums in China, and magazines with Sneaker as the main reading object have been launched in China, such as "Size", "Shoe Upper" and so on.In these forums and magazines, Sneaker discusses limited edition shoes, pursues new shoes that have not yet made the factory, or posts the dissection process of a pair of shoes on the forum.All this can only explain one problem: In China, sports shoes have begun to become a kind of culture.

This group of enthusiastic and professional consumers not only began to affect business, but sometimes even promoted the technological innovation of brand companies such as Li Ning. "Li Ning" began to discover and pay attention to the trend of Sneaker influence around 2004 and 2005. At this time, Sneakers who collected international famous shoes also began to pay attention to Li Ning brand, which was rising in technology and design.Ma Xun, a designer of Li Ning Company, said: "Although these people seem to be a small group, they are opinion leaders. People around them will consult them when buying shoes. This change is very important to us." So, in 2005, "Li Ning "Sponsored a gathering of 200 people in the Sina "I'm Shoe Crazy" forum, one of the largest sneakers in China. The "I'm Shoe Maniac" forum calls itself "China's largest sports shoe exchange platform", and the players in it call themselves "shoe maniacs".

When "Li Ning" put the party under the Internet, these sneakers really met.What would they be doing together, hugging excitedly?Or who has more collections?Of course not, their gameplay is more "professional": anatomy of a "Li Ning" basketball shoe just produced, the main model of the year TOP GUN. Sneakers used cutting knives and hacksaws to disassemble the "Li Ning" TOP GUN basketball shoes, and looked at its structure, material and other details layer by layer. This is their favorite game.To be honest, Li Ning also likes this destructive game. The dissected samples were provided by Li Ning on its own initiative. After the Sneakers enthusiastically disassembled the shoes, they came to the following conclusions with their dismembered shoes: " The technical content and professionalism of this pair of shoes are comparable to those of first-line brands such as Nike and Adidas." After the party, a large number of evaluations of TOP GUN basketball shoes were spontaneously posted on major forums by the group of Sneakers on major footwear websites. "Li Ning Company took the opportunity to tell Sneakers that in the field of high-end shoes, we are already very different from Nike and Adidas, and we all use the same factory." Ma Xun said.

Two years later, on August 25, "Li Ning" played the game even bigger.This time it's not just a party, "Li Ning" has let out the wind and will launch a custom-made shoe for the third anniversary of the establishment of the "I'm Shoe Crazy" forum. The design task of this pair of sneakers was handed over to Zuo Zhiyue.This designer, known as "Old Left", is an out-and-out "local-made" designer trained by "Li Ning". Since he graduated from Liaoning University of Technology with a major in industrial design in 2002, he has joined Li Ning's design company. department.Now he is the core designer of "Li Ning" basketball products, and one of the first batch of "Li Ning" basketball shoes full of Chinese elements, "Ba Ding", came from him. Sneakers were also excited to "pick up" such information: Lao Zuo is also a rare all-round sports shoe designer in Li Ning Company. He not only designs basketball shoes and casual shoes, but also can be seen in the "Li Ning" product catalogue. Designed jogging shoes, cross-country shoes, soccer shoes, cross-training shoes and tennis shoes.This kind of situation is rare even in Li Ning Company, which has many designers.

After receiving the task of "Shoe Crazy", Lao Zuoxin has decided to make a design that "stage effect is more important than everything else".According to the article "Interview with Li Ning Sneaker Designer - Zuo Zhiyue" in "Size" magazine, Lao Zuo, who is usually busy with work and rarely surfs the Internet, began to often dive in the "I'm Shoe Crazy" forum.He found that the family atmosphere in "Shoe Mania" is relatively strong, and he feels that this forum is a paradise.Therefore, in the design of the shoes, he adopted a soft overall tone to highlight the sense of harmony and warmth. The crossed lines on the upper and the circles at the intersections represent a thing that almost every family has - a sofa, while The word "sofa" itself is also a very popular Internet term; he even singled out many netizens' comments on the forum and printed them in the insoles. "I believe that anyone who has been to Shoesmania will feel very kind when they see these words." Lao Zuo explained.In order to highlight the theme of the third anniversary of "Shoe Crazy", this pair of shoes has a "crazy" logo on the left foot and a "Three Years" logo on the right foot.

However, this is a design concept that was widely circulated after the fact.Before August, almost no one knew exactly what the shoe would look like.It has been privately inquired about by professional magazines, the media and many fans long before it comes out.The design of this pair of shoes was like a mystery at first, and then bits and pieces about it were picked out bit by bit by professional magazines and shoe fan forums.Soon, a professional magazine published the picture, and in the "I'm Shoe Crazy" forum, netizens uploaded the picture.Netizens have speculated: Will this be "that pair" of shoes? What will "that" shoe look like?The interaction between the company and Sneaker has been quite close. The moderator "Garfield" of the "I'm Sneaker Crazy" forum did not get permission from Li Ning Company to "take back" the pair of shoes from the company until a few days before August 25th. shoot.He described himself holding this pair of sample shoes with a special number "everything carefully, after all, this pair of shoes is the only one in the world".The pair of shoes he posted on the forum caused quite a stir.