“Personally, I always liked the all-black — I thought they were sleek,” said Jozy Altidore, a United States forward who endorses Adidas. “But we all know the importance of marketing, and so, I just wear whatever they send me.”

Fashion anywhere is a business, and there has been a trickle-down effect in soccer. General sales for colored shoes have skyrocketed among amateur and youth players in recent years, and the shoe companies are adapting to the changing tastes. According to an Adidas spokesman, more than 80 percent of the cleats offered by the company during the spring/summer period this year were “color-based or accented by bright pop colors.”

“It’s a fashion show at the World Cup,” said Antonio Zea, director of soccer innovation at Adidas.

Denis Dekovic, the soccer design director at Nike, said that while relationships with professional players are important, “our focus is on the younger players. We want the future.”

It is difficult to pinpoint when colored cleats broke through. Zea said that Adidas often points to 1996, when Bolivia’s Marco Etcheverry routinely wore a red version of the seminal Predator cleat.

Dekovic noted that up until the late 1990s, shoe designers were restricted with regard to colors because of the materials available to them. Kangaroo leather, which was preferred for cleats, was difficult to dye without compromising its integrity, so “it was pretty much black or white or maybe a little red,” he said.

In 1998, when Brazil’s Ronaldo wore Nike’s new Mercurial cleat, it was a breakthrough for the company on multiple levels: The colors were silver and blue, and the material was synthetic.

“Players today have strong personalities, and the only way to show their personality is through the boots because everything else they wear is part of their uniform,” Dekovic said.

黑色球鞋下场 世界杯赛场七彩绽放 (下)

“个人而言我喜欢黑色， 因为我觉得黑色很时髦，” 美国队前锋阿尔蒂多说， 他为阿迪达斯代言。“但我们都清楚营销的重要性，所以，他们让穿什么我都照办。”

时尚是门生意，足球圈里也能看到滴流效应。彩色球鞋受业余爱好者和年轻球员的青睐，销量普遍显著上升，球鞋公司因此努力迎合消费者口味。

阿迪达斯的一位发言人说，公司今年春夏款的球鞋超过80%都是亮色或带有亮色的。

“今年的世界杯会像一场时装秀，” 阿迪达斯的足球创意总监安东尼奥•齐说。

耐克的足球创意总监丹尼斯•德科维奇说，找职业球员代言很重要，“但我们更关注年轻球员，因为我们着眼未来。”

很难说彩色球鞋的风潮何时开启。齐说阿迪达斯认为是1996年，当时玻利维亚的马尔科·埃切维里总是穿一双具有开创性的红色猎鹰球鞋。

德科维奇说上世纪90年代后期之前，球鞋设计者可选的颜色少是受材料的限制。袋鼠皮是球鞋的首选材质，但不经过处理很难上色，处理后就没那么耐穿，所以“当时球鞋非黑即白，或偶有红色。”

1998年，巴西的罗纳尔多穿上耐克Mercurial球鞋，对公司来说是个多方面的突破：球鞋的颜色是银色和蓝色的，而且用了合成材料。

德科维奇说：“如今的球员有鲜明的个性，唯一可以用来表达个性的装束就是球鞋，因为他们必须穿队服。”

Words to Learn 相关词汇

    【代言】

    dàiyán

    endorse

    promote a product

    【开创性的】

    kāichuàngxìng de

    seminal

    highly original and influencing the development of future events