Soap is the brand name of shoes made for grinding similar to aggressive inline
skating. They were introduced by Chris Morris of Artemis Innovations Inc. with
the brand name "Soap" in 1997. They have a plastic concavity in the sole, which
allows the wearer to grind on objects such as pipes, handrails, and stone
ledges. The company and their product rapidly gained popularity through
fansites, a video game, and live demonstrations. Soap fell to legal
vulnerabilities and was readministrated twice, eventually bringing the brand to
Heeling Sports Limited. The act of grinding on rails and ledges
specifically using soap shoes has been dubbed "soaping", with the "soaper"
being the one performing said act. History
Soap shoes were essentially derived from rollerblades and aggressive skating.
Chris Morris, a resident of California who worked at RollerBlade in Torrance
for over sixteen years, worked to customize a simple shoe that had a grind
plate embedded in the sole. The shoe was an average Nike, fitted for sliding.
Concept 21 was called upon to design a sample so that the product could be
finalized. They then formed Artemis Innovations, which would be the company
the brand would be sold under for four years. In 2001, Mr. Morris lost control
of the Soap license through legal problems. Activity within the company
slowed down, and eventually the remaining executives sold Soap.
In-Stride, a company whose target market was primarily wrestling gear, purchased
Soap. There are rumours that a certain company before In-Stride purchased Soap.
The name of this company remains unknown. It is still debated whether
In-Stride ever designed or released any Soap shoes, although evidence does
suggest that they were responsible for a couple models that did not have
grindplates such as the Spin and Trounce. In-Stride went bankrupt in late
2002, and Soap was once again available for purchase.
Heeling Sports Limited, the company behind the shoes with a wheel in the
sole known as Heelys, realized that the grindplate could be very profitable when
paired with their wheel, and acquired Soap later that year. In early 2003, six
new Soap shoes were released, each in multiple color schemes; simultaneously,
HSL was designing hybrid shoes to sell under the Heelys brand. HSL has been
criticized for releasing too many new models at a single time, and not
supplying requested stock to retailers frequently enough. There is one model
still in production from the first generation released by HSL, the Soap
Express. The sport never caught on to the mass
market in comparison to, for instance, skateboarding, but the brand "Soap" does
have a professional team mostly consisting of former professional inline
skaters such as Ryan Jaunzemis who was a member of the original Soap Shoe team
along with Bryndon Smith, Danny Lynch, Paul Cerfuentes, Eddie Ramirez and Ben
Kelly. Soap's heyday was in the late 90's and early 2000s, when competing
crews from across the Americas and Europe were releasing internet videos,
spurring an online community of "Soapers". These crews have since
disbanded along with the website forums, and now there are few proponents left.
A revival of sorts was noticed in early 2006 as more people were attracted to
Soaping, and HSL responded by re-releasing their Express model in
limited quantities. Soap Shoes continue to sluggishly regain popularity despite
some difficulty due to Heelys using grindplates in addition to their wheels.
That was until the recession had hit, which affected HSL most of all. Heelys
stock was once 38 dollars per share, and on August 8, 2007 heelys had lost half
of its stock value in a single day from $21.99 to $11.42. Now former CEO Michael
Staffaroni at the time was expecting significant growth despite the stock
plummet. Soap Shoes at the time managed to have a very successful demo at Xtreme
Wheels Skate Park despite HSL's financial problems. A year later, the
Soap Shoes Express was discontinued by HSL and liquidation for Soap Shoes
began, with representatives from heelys claiming to "just throw out" anything
that was left over. Within a matter of five years, Heelys stock had sunk down
to $2.25 per share, and was sold to Sequential Brand Group for $63.2
million, taking the soap and other grind shoe patents with it. Around the same
time, the SOAP Shoes website was taken down with a logo that says it's under
development. Until very recently, Soap shoes seemed
to have all but disappeared, with only the odd hard-core fan-site still keeping
the memory alive. However, a UK based skate shop has temporarily revived the
brand, with a selection becoming available in October 2014 at Skate Hut
in Halesowen, near Birmingham and on their website. Availability will
obviously be limited as the shoes are not currently manufactured.
Soap shoes in Sonic the Hedgehog Soap shoes were featured in the video
game Sonic Adventure 2, developed by Sonic Team USA in San Francisco. This
game presented many billboards, blimps, and benches advertising the shoes; also,
Sonic wore a custom version of the Scorcher/Nitro shoes exclusive to the
title, while the darker character Shadow wears hybrid jet hoverskate/grind shoes,
as grinding debuted as an important new gameplay element. Grinding remains a
core element in recent Sonic games, though officially licensed Soap shoes
have given way to generic grind shoes. Pending the sale of Soap to In-Stride
and later HSL, no actions were taken for the continuation of the partnership.
However, in two episodes of the anime Sonic X, Sonic's Soap shoes are brought
in to give him an advantage over his enemies. The HD re-release of Sonic
Adventure 2 had all of the in-game advertisements but the Soap shoes
advertisements were removed. References
External links Official website