![]() ![]() Not only did the first Blue Ribbon Sports retail location open in Santa Monica, four of Nike's ten department stores were located in the greater L.A. In the 1980s, the Cortez began to take on a new association: the city of Los Angeles.Īt this point in Nike's history, it already had deep roots in Southern California. The Cortez as a cultural symbol: Los Angeles, Chicanos, and resilience Many of his subjects over the years have worn Nike Cortezes. Photographer Estevan Oriol documents life in Los Angeles. It was so popular that it caused a whole host of inventory and supply problems for Blue Ribbon. Immediately upon release, the Cortez was a hit, helping the company hit its end-of-year revenue projections. "Cortés stands out for the scope of the violence and warfare that he organized and led, making Columbus look tame by comparison," says Terraciano.īlue Ribbon couldn't have predicted it at the time, but the Cortez would turn out to be not just one of the most important shoes in the company's history, but one of the most important shoes of the twentieth century - every bit as iconic as the Chuck Taylor All Stars or the Adidas Stan Smith. For example, even after the Spaniards declared victory, Cortés had the last Aztec Emperor Cuauhtémoc tortured by burning his feet, Terraciano says, and eventually executed by hanging him from a tree. ![]() Only a few years later, the Aztec Empire was toppled.Įven amongst conquistadors, the tactics Cortés used were particularly brutal. There were cities with very sophisticated societies with writing systems and marketplaces - all of the trademarks of what we might consider to be a great civilization," says Kevin Terraciano, a professor of history at the University of California Los Angeles who specializes in Latin American history. "When the Europeans arrived, the population as many as 25 million in Mesoamerica. When Spaniards arrived at Tenochtitlan, the capital city of the Aztec Empire, in 1519, some experts estimate the population was higher than 200,000 people – making it larger than most cities in Europe. In the book, Knight documents how the shoe eventually got its name: There was, however, one problem: Adidas had already released a track shoe called the Azteca Gold - and they were threatening to sue if the name wasn't changed. With the 1968 Olympic games held in Mexico right around the corner, Bowerman came up with "The Aztec," a homage to the Mesoamericans who inhabited what eventually became Mexico. In his 2016 memoir Shoe Dog, Phil Knight writes that Onitsuka sent Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight a shoe prototype they were collaborating on in 1967 - the company wanted suggestions on a name. Blue Ribbon signed a contract to distribute shoes made by Onitsuka Tiger, a Japanese shoe-manufacturer, that was looking to make inroads in the United States. The two co-founded Blue Ribbon Sports as more of a retail operation. It wasn't even named Nike: It was Blue Ribbon Sports, co-founded by Bill Bowerman, legendary University of Oregon track coach, and Phil Knight, a businessman who Bowerman had once coached. When Nike was founded, it was a startup that didn't manufacture its own shoes. Michael Zagaris/Getty Images Getty Images (R) In an episode of Charlie's Angels, Farrah Fawcett is seen escaping on a skateboard while wearing Senorita Cortezes, a version of the shoe marketed to women. (L) Whitney Houston wore a pair of Nike Cortezes to sing the national anthem at the 1991 Super Bowl.
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