Jennifer the Valley Girl, whose most strenuous exercise consists of cruising the local shopping mall, favors $64 pink L.A. Gear athletic shoes with Western-style, imitation-silver buckles. Arthur the accountant, who bicycles ten miles before picking up his calculator in the morning, wears TC Lite, Nike's $85 cycling model. His weekend tennis partner rushes the net in Reebok's $80 Italian-made Cosenza tennis shoes, with the brand name discreetly scrawled in the corner.
Only fuddy-duddies still think of sneakers as inexpensive, all-purpose athletic shoes with heavy rubber soles. Today's models are an exacting mixture of fashion and technology, composed of such materials as...