Wilson Smith & Tate Kuerbis, and the rise of sneakers as cultural currency

Close your eyes and try to picture this scene. It’s 1986, at Nike head office in Washington County, Oregon and architect Wilson Smith III, who has been working with Nike as a showroom, store and corporate office designer has just been asked if he can come to the back room for a talk. “I went in expecting the worst,” he recalls to FashionUnited over a zoom interview. Layoffs were sweeping through the sportswear company at the time and he assumed his number was up. However, much to his surprise, he received an unexpected offer from designer Tinker Hatfield: Would he like to join him in designing shoes for Nike?

“I said, ‘oh, sure I've always wanted to design shoes,’ when honestly I hadn't ever really thought of it," says Smith. Coming from an architectural background, the proposition to design footwear was unexpected and certainly a career path he never expected to follow. “For me architecture was my north star, my design calling in life,” he notes. Slightly apprehensive about taking the leap, he followed Hatfield into footwear design at Nike and never looked back. It marked the start of an illustrious 41-year career at Nike, where he became the company's first Black designer, working alongside Hatfield and other design legends to create shoes for Michael Jordan, Andre Agassi, Roger Federer, and Serena Williams.

Fast forward to the present and Smith, together with Tate Kuerbis, fellow Nike footwear designer veteran, are spending a few days mentoring the next generation of sneaker designers at SCAD's 2025 Sneaker Culture Week. Hosted by the first accredited sneaker design degree in the United States, FashionUnited spoke with Smith and Kuerbis on the evolution of the sneaker industry, the cultural transformation of this product category and where sneaker design is headed next. Working for close to three decades at Nike, Kuerbis’s impressive design portfolio includes Air Jordans 18-19 and 31-36. He joined Nike as soon as he graduated in 1995 in industrial design, working with Smith right from the start. And much like Smith, he wasn’t sure of his path as a footwear designer. “I didn’t even think sneaker design was a thing,” he admits to FashionUnited. “I just assumed that shoes kind of appeared in the store.”

With Kuerbis’s first project at Nike being a takedown of one the shoes Wilson was working on, the two American designers share much history. Entering the sneaker design field long before the word sneaker was even a thing, together the two designers have witnessed sports footwear transform from simple ‘tennis shoes’ into an 80 billion dollar industry and global cultural phenomenon that influences high fashion, helps shape youth identity, and commands the attention of collectors worldwide. Not only does their stories underline the evolution of a product category, they also highlight the emergence of an entirely new creative discipline, one that has led to the development of dedicated degree programs like SCAD, and a shift in cultural perception. At the same time, both Smith’s and Kuerbis’s careers also illustrate the importance of understanding key design principles and the fundamental human skills of listening, observing, and translating vision into reality.

From architecture and industrial design to cultural relevance

Smith's path to footwear design can be described as meandering at best. "My mom saw me playing with building blocks and drawing pictures when I was five," he explains, "and she said, 'You should become an architect, because architects make lots of money.' She didn't want me to be a starving artist." Although his interest in design was ingrained from a young age, architecture was pitched to him as the safest creative path, and the only legitimate design profession where one could make a living at the time.

Working under Hatfield, Nike's corporate architect, Smith spent two years designing branded retail environments. Then came the 'Sneaker Wars' of 1986, an intense competitive period when Reebok's women's aerobics shoe, the Princess, was threatening Nike's and Adidas' dominance and the newly launched Air Jordan line was just beginning to make waves. When the layoffs came, Smith's unexpected pivot to footwear design felt almost like he was taking a step backwards. "I thought my career had just gone nowhere," he admits. "I thought I'm going from being Frank Lloyd Wright or the likes, and now I'm designing shoes."

Kuerbis entered the field nearly a decade later, in 1995, arriving at Nike the week after he graduated from industrial design school. His introduction to footwear design was even more accidental. "I never even thought about shoe design," he notes. "I never thought that there was a designer that sits down and designs the shoes you see in stores." The revelation that footwear design was actually a career path came through a friend who did an internship at Nike and brought back prototype shoes with 'big air bubbles.' "They looked like something from outer space. It was then I first had the thought that, hey, this could be a really fun job."

Stepping into his role without any type of formal introduction, both faced the same fundamental challenge: there was no roadmap when it came to sneaker design. "They really just put you at a desk and literally gave you a pad of paper and pencils and pens, because we didn't have laptops or computers back then. You just started designing shoes," Kuerbis recalls. Working as product designers, at the time there were no material designers, no color teams, no trend specialists. "You just figured it out," says Smith.

The discipline was being invented in real time by designers who leveraged skills from adjacent fields, including architecture, industrial design, graphic design, and had to adapt them to the unique challenges of footwear design. Unsurprisingly, Smith's architectural training proved to be incredibly relevant: "Shoes are just little buildings, homes for the feet. Form follows function." The same design thinking that shaped structures was easily applied to footwear, abetted at a smaller, more intimate scale. Ultimately becoming icons within a sector of the footwear industry that was still defining itself, both Smith and Kuerbis undoubtedly had a hand in shaping the role of the sneaker designer as it stands today.

The great terminology shift, from tennis shoes to trainers to sneakers

While the term sneaker is rather commonplace in the industry today, it wasn’t always that way. The evolution of language reflects the evolution of meaning, and nowhere is this clearer than in the terminology used to describe athletic footwear. Smith’s observation on the use of the word during our interview is telling of this: “The word sneaker didn't even really work for me until recently. I didn't even use the word." Even when he joined Nike's DNA (Department of Nike Archives) team, the sudden appearance of ‘sneakers’ in his job title caught him off guard, as he primarily saw himself as a designer and storyteller. The linguistic change within the sports footwear sector connects to a broader cultural transformation that has unfolded over the past four decades to say the least.

In 1983, when Smith joined Nike, the type of shoes most people wore during sports were referred to as "tennis shoes"—simple, white, perforated leather designs that were sport-specific and functional. "My favorite shoes were just straightforward white tennis shoes, and just super simple," says Smith. By the early 1990s, the emergence of the cross-training age saw the introduction of a new term: "trainers." These were more gym-focused, performance-driven shoes worn primarily in athletic contexts, “shoes you wore when you were training, hence the name trainers,” explains Smith, pointing out that the language remained firmly rooted in function and sport.

But around the mid 2010s, Wilson said he noticed something fundamental shifted. "Sneakers became a cultural buzz.” The term "sneakerheads" emerged to describe collectors and enthusiasts, people who would wait in lines for hours to purchase a limited-edition drop of a particular footwear style. The retro explosion of 2010-2015 was driven largely by nostalgic millennials according to Smith, people who had grown up in the 1990s and now had purchasing power. "Those people are now driving the trend, shaping demand and the main type of sneakerheads. They’re the ones who are into the world of sneakers, and so it's really kind of fueled the guild of culture," notes Smith.

The cultural elevation of athletic footwear also changed what aspects many footwear brands and designers focused on to a certain extent. In the 1990s, many sneaker designs focused on the silhouette and the overall shape and form of the shoe. But as materiality evolved and manufacturing capabilities expanded, the focus shifted away from the sneaker silhouette to playing with new materials and colorways. "I would say the designers of the '90s have now become the material and color designers of today," says Smith. Classic sneaker silhouettes can now be expressed in countless variations, creating what Smith calls "almost like new stories and new silhouettes." An athlete like Devin Booker could have his signature shoe, the Book One, released in 50-plus colorway versions, each telling a slightly different story while maintaining the core design.

Perhaps one of the most significant impacts the athletic shoes has had is on fashion, by inverting the traditional hierarchy of fashion. "I feel like sneakers have almost taken over the design part of how humans choose to dress," Smith explains. "It used to be that you kind of had this outfit in mind and you would accessorize with a particular pair of shoes, that would take a back seat, perhaps to your overall look. And I would dare to say that in some ways now, footwear, sneakers, have kind of become the main focus of a look and you almost accessorize them with your clothes."

The shift in cultural relevance makes intuitive sense to Smith from a design perspective: "Shoes are where the body meets the earth, grounding you. It's this really important location. And I think it makes sense to almost highlight that or make that a special thing." Rather than just responding to consumer needs, sneaker design has been able to influence it, with high-end fashion brand from Balenciaga to Louis Vuitton incorporating elements from athletic footwear, further blurring the lines between performance and personal expression. The cultural elevation of sneakers into somewhat of a status item has naturally placed unprecedented pressure on the designers tasked with creating them—especially those working on iconic lines. For Kuerbis this pressure reached its peak when he was assigned what would become one of the most demanding projects of his career.

Michael Jordan's masterclass in listening

Six years into his Nike career, Kuerbis received what many would describe as a career-defining assignment: design the Air Jordan 18. Admittedly, he didn't fully grasp "the immensity and the pressure" at the time. The job was soon accompanied by pressure from his personal life, as his wife became pregnant with the first son at the same time. "I always joke that I was giving birth to the Air Jordan 18 while she was giving birth to our first son, and I would never say this directly to her, but I think my experience was more painful," he says with a laugh. "I think I was actually designing the day she gave birth and I went back to work like two days later. I was so consumed with the project."

The project however provided Kuerbis with an invaluable education in design thinking, courtesy of Michael Jordan himself. Before he began working on the design, Jordan invited Kuerbis to his house, and gave him a tour of the sportscars in his garage, which included his latest Ferraris. The two discussed beautiful design, craftsmanship, and attention to detail, as Jordan showed Kuerbis a pair of Italian leather driving shoes, pointing out the stitching, the craftsmanship, the rubber wrapping up the heel for pedal protection. Then the star basketball player dropped this in, according to Kuerbis, saying: "It would be so cool if you could design a basketball shoe for me that looked like it was just one piece of leather just going around. Just as clean as possible and as simple as possible."

A design challenge that would later become a key lesson, “simple design is actually hard to do," says Kuerbis. "You really have to whittle down every single piece, every stitch, every design element." The driving shoe became the conceptual foundation for the Air Jordan 18, but translating that elegant simplicity into a high-performance basketball shoe required understanding Jordan's vision from both performance and aesthetic perspectives. Smith, who also worked with Jordan on the Air Jordan 16 and 17, is quick to share what made Jordan special as an athlete collaborator for sneaker design. "Michael Jordan is one of the greatest listeners I've ever been around. He actually really pays attention, and he zooms in, and he listens, and he gets it."

To some, this may be a little surprising for someone known primarily for intense competitiveness, but Smith sees the connection: "I think part of it is because he's highly competitive... he's probably going to beat you in everything." That competitive drive translated into careful attention to every detail that might provide him with an edge in his game. More importantly, Jordan is among the rare athletes who could discuss both performance requirements and style inspiration with equal fluency. A dual approach, this is reflected in Nike's foundational philosophy, drawn from its two founders. “Phil Knight always said ‘Listen to the voice of the athlete,’" recalls Smith, Bill Bowerman, a former University of Oregon track coach who co-founded Nike, contributed an equally important principle, saying: "If you have a body, you're an athlete." Together, these philosophies created what Smith calls "the empathy foundation" of Nike design.

The distinction between Nike and Jordan Brand design approaches further highlights this balance. Nike's design approach leans towards showcase their patent technology, with visible airbags, foam soles and obvious performance features. Jordan Brand took the opposite approach: hide it. "[Air Jordans] have the technology, it's just more refined and elegant," explains Kuerbis. "Kind of like if you look at a beautiful sports car, you know the performance is there, but it's hidden underneath a very refined, beautiful design."

The lesson here from Jordan, Smith and Kuerbis for students is crystal clear: listen closely. Be a sponge. Absorb everything you can from the world around you, whether it be architecture, furniture, or an athlete's garage. "You're taking in everything about the athlete, the end user" stresses Smith. "You're taking in everything you know about them." Observatory skills and listening form the foundation of human-centered design thinking, which begins with empathy. "You have to really be a good listener," adds Kuerbis. "The athlete you may be designing for might not be able to articulate exactly what they are seeing or what they need. Most of the time they're really good about talking about performance because that's their job. They perform on the court. But it's really about translating what their vision is, whether it's from a performance standpoint or style standpoint." A main skill for any designer, the ability to listen deeply and translate vision into tangible forms is the core competency, even as everything else about the industry continues to evolve.

The future of sneaker design

And evolve it has. Yet when asked about the future, Smith approaches it with the same grounded pragmatism that defines his approach to sneaker design. "Whenever I think about the future, it's seldom so spacey," he says, pointing to the 2000s as a cautionary tale. Sneaker designers at the time created many experimental laceless constructions, but by 2003, the market had returned to "a sea of laces again because they actually worked"—a clear example of function trumping novelty.

Rather than space-age predictions, Smith and Kuerbis identify three emerging shifts in sneaker design. First, footwear and apparel will converge through shared materials and unified design language. "You may have a base layer that you connect directly with your shoes, almost like it's one suit," Smith explains. While this approach to dressing is probably two decades away, Kuerbis notes the groundwork is already visible now in the trend for monotonous, functional and utilitarian styles. Second, both designers foresee accelerating demand for customization, driven by digital tools including 3D printing and generative AI. "People are going to be able to create what they need for the moment," says Smith, "a derivative of something that everyone's going to use, but they'll be able to articulate more personalized approaches."

A shift away from mass production to mass customization, this ties into the third trend: sustainable innovation through new materials and local manufacturing that reduce environmental impact. During the SNKR Culture Week, Kuerbis shares that he has observed a countercultural Gen Z movement that could amplify these changes. "I can see that they're really appreciating the idea of handmade, the fact that it took someone months to create an item because it was handcrafted," he notes—a stark contrast to the instant digital output and overseas manufacturing that has dominated the industry for five decades. "This kind of stuff is refreshing and exciting to see."

The digital tools enabling this future have also transformed sneaker design how it stands today dramatically. Kuerbis notes that he started out with just "a pencil and an eraser and pads of paper," creating designs that were "very cartoony and hand drawn looking and playful." Today's designers have advanced visualization tools AI and 3D printing, vastly accelerating the journey from initial concept to prototype. But relying on technology for sneaker design alone isn't enough. "AI can generate thousands of pictures, but it still takes a human designer to decide whether that is a good design," warns Kuerbis. "It takes a good designer to be able to take that image and actually turn it into an actual 3D product." The infrastructure around sneaker design has professionalized too, with entire teams of material designers, color specialists, and trend forecasters supporting processes that once required designers to "just figure it out."

Of course, this transformation has created new pressures for sneaker designers. Design cycles usually run 18 to 24 months out, with teams working on 2027 and 2028 collections. However with the rise of ultra fast fashion, some designers have as little as four weeks to go from concept to finished product "You're on a treadmill that just keeps getting faster and faster," points out Kuerbis, "and you're trying to stay on as long as you can and try to predict the future, but it's really hard."