Hupana, Asics, and Me

Salomon is one of several niche running-shoe brands that are newly in vogue. To take another example, Hoka One One, based in Goleta, Calif., collaborated last year with New York label Engineered Garments on asymmetrically colored versions of its Hupana runner. Meanwhile, models at the New York Fashion Week show for Brooklyn designer Collina Strada wore tie-dyed sneakers with curvy soles made in collaboration with Bondi. And Japan’s Asics collaborates with avant-garde Bulgarian designer Kiko Kostadinov on shoes carried at bleeding-edge boutiques like Canada’s Ssense and Chicago’s Notre (a rare, lime-green pair from the collaboration’s early days now resells for nearly $1,000).  WSJ

Oh, I could tell you stories of the tennis shoes of yore.

The kind I bought for 7.50 at the Penney's store.

Sturdy yet elastic, with a high top laced up tight;

they came in red and black and for the girls they came in white.

Yes, I could tell you stories -- but who cares about the past?

Running shoes today have got my memories outclassed.

They are not made of rubber, and no canvas do they use;

they're made of polyethylene and often are chartreuse.

The cost of brand name running shoes would feed a family

in Ghana for a month or more, and keep them in Chablis.

But fashion is its own reward, like virtue in a way;

and like virtue it now seems to change from day to day.