A vintage shoe steps up and then down

At a national sports event in 1948, a helicopter flew over the Shanghai stadium, spewing out plumes of flyers. It was an ad for Warrior, a canvas shoe that started in that most metropolitan of Chinese cities in 1933.

Warrior was cool. Even its marketing gimmick was talk of the town.

Later on, when New China was founded, Warrior shoes remained the preferred choice of trendsetters, such as sports teams and soldiers, at a time when fashion was out of vogue. During the 1970s, loitering around town in a pair of Warrior sneakers was the Chinese equivalent of doing a disco dance in John Travolta garb. It epitomized urban chic, especially for young men.