
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Sneaker, trainer call them what you will. How did this product of the industrial revolution and a rising middle class become a global fashion item worth tens of billions of dollars a year? Especially when 85% of the purchases are never intended for its original purpose, health and fitness. Join Mike Williams for the Why Factor on Sneakers.
Produced by Julie Ball
(Photo: A man looks at a collection of sneakers in the window of a shopping mall, in the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Credit: Getty Images)
By BBC World Service4.6
182182 ratings
Sneaker, trainer call them what you will. How did this product of the industrial revolution and a rising middle class become a global fashion item worth tens of billions of dollars a year? Especially when 85% of the purchases are never intended for its original purpose, health and fitness. Join Mike Williams for the Why Factor on Sneakers.
Produced by Julie Ball
(Photo: A man looks at a collection of sneakers in the window of a shopping mall, in the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Credit: Getty Images)

78,707 Listeners

11,158 Listeners

26,250 Listeners

7,893 Listeners

378 Listeners

857 Listeners

1,072 Listeners

5,577 Listeners

1,807 Listeners

1,749 Listeners

1,028 Listeners

1,958 Listeners

601 Listeners

959 Listeners

839 Listeners

4,171 Listeners

3,230 Listeners

792 Listeners

15,475 Listeners

2,310 Listeners

787 Listeners