A Force: Nike Cortez

Give me sneakers over heels any day and I'll be the happiest woman in the world. Don't get me wrong I love a great pair of heels or wedges but sneakers speak to me at my core, they have the ability to be stylish and provide great comfort when done well, and I don't think many brands do this as well as Nike does. As we roll in way into 2017, we get to celebrate 45 years of the Nike Cortez, which many can accredit to giving Nike the status it has today. After having been unveiled in the 1972 Olympics, the shoe quickly gained traction from both pop culture and street life alike.

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Having been dubbed the shoe of LA it's interesting to know a bit about the history behind the Nike Cortez that has made it so popular in the past 45 years. The main contributor to its wide success is the street gangs of LA. I found it so interesting how due to the amount of gangs wearing them and how so many of them in particular were Latinos, that Nike changed the original name which was Corsair to Cortez. The specific color of the swoosh, Nike's most iconic symbol, determined your outcome between the LA gangs. They were also coincidentally the first Nike shoe to carry the swoosh logo.

The Nike Cortez can also be seen in different moments of pop culture but none stand out to me as much as Farrah Fawcett on Charlie's Angels and Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump (talk about that early af product placement).