Slate's Bizbox
fashion: The language of style.

Let's RollField-testing Heelys, the sneakers with wheels.

By John Swansburg
Posted Thursday, Aug. 2, 2007, at 7:25 AM ET

(Continued from page 1)

My fondness for the Whole Foods experience, though, isn't purely a function of its fast surfaces. Unlike their ancestors the rollerblade and the skateboard, Heelys aren't really designed to get you from one place to another—unless the trip is all downhill, heeling isn't any quicker or easier than walking—or even really for doing tricks. The primary function of Heelys, as I see it, is to make boring activities a little bit less boring.

YouTube, unsurprisingly, has a vast collection of heeling videos, and cycling through them, you can't help but notice how many are shot at the mall—or at Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and Target. Watching this footage, I was reminded of all the downtime of childhood, of being dragged along to the supermarket or the department store and left to entertain myself while my parents ran their errands. Those errands would have been a lot more fun if I'd been cutting up some linoleum in my Heelys.

I'm not the only grownup who has discovered the joys of heeling in Whole Foods, but I don't think an adult Heely fad is in the offing. Heelys have neither the sports applications of rollerblades nor the countercultural vibe of skateboards (though this might change if schools keep banning them), which might grant them broad appeal among those of us old enough to have a real set of wheels. Then again, these things can be hard to predict. The greatest use of Heelys that I've come across paired them with the bizarre practice of "ghost riding the whip"—a pastime of Bay-area hip-hoppers wherein you get out of your car while it's still moving and dance on and around it. In this mesmerizing video, a guy heels circles around his pick-up as it rolls, unmanned, through a darkened parking lot. If this catches on, more grownups may yet buy Heelys. You can't ghost ride the whip if you don't have a driver's license.

VIEW AS SINGLE PAGE
Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
John Swansburg is a Slate associate editor.
Illustration by Charlie Powell.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES

Remarks from the Fray:

Absolutely right - the goal is to get the kids to accompany you uncomplainingly. My kid wears her Heelys in the Park Slope Food Co-op - it is the ONLY way to make that trip tolerable for her, and she loves the floors there.

--LJND

(To reply, click here.)

As a person who works in a retail business with plenty of glass objects and pointy cornered tables, I speak for my store when I say Heelys are the worst possible shoe on the planet. Not only do my co-workers and I have to worry about our merchandise and props being toppled over, but also if a child falls and hits their head on one of our tables we could be liable for it. Even though, in my option, we shouldn't have to worry about that. I have seen plenty of children in our store with those shoes and they are bothersome when trying to navigate around them, tables, and other customers with heavy boxes. These shoes do stop well I have seen many close calls when a child falls forward after they stop using the wheel. These close calls happen also when they try to move out of someone's way in close quarters.

--aisuru113

(To reply, click here.)

If you are an adult and you wipe out, it's your fault. If you buy them for your kids and they go sailing into a plate glass window, that's your bad, too.

What about those of us who are walking in one of those stores, thinking that the other people in there with are walking also? Having the share the store with somebody who can--without warning--shift to much faster speed is turning into a real problem, one that is going to leave people sprawled among the Whole Foods lettuces or encourage a new generation of signage prohibiting heeling along with other dangerous activites.

I thought that the kids sailing through my supermarket just had parents who didn't know how to keep them under control. Now it appears that the children are actually encouraged to do that shit and make me look like an old fart for being pissed off.

--jds2006

(To reply, click here.)

I can't imagine why these disasters-waiting-to-happen haven't spawned a whole cottage industry of trial lawyers in every state suing the bejesus out of this company. Even the seven-year-old I know constantly wipes out in his shoes. It's an unsafe principle to start with, it causes accidents all the time, and the first place you fall is onto your wrists as you try to catch your balance. Why is this product not up to its shoelaces in litigation? Can someone explain how our sue-happy culture failed us on this one?

--speedracerx

(To reply, click here.)

(8/3)