The ‘sneakers’ have come to stay and are already worn in areas unthinkable a few years ago; from work to events
Take a look around you and notice the shoes people are wearing. I start. Of the ten people around me right now at work, one is wearing boots, two are in lace-ups, and the rest are in sneakers; some more ‘neat’ than others, but sneakers after all. The ‘boom’ of sports shoes in more formal areas such as work or even in events of a certain level has come to stay. No one notices that the person who assists you at the bank wears ‘sneakers’ with a suit jacket or that the advisor who does the income statement comes to your office every day in sneakers. In fact, more and more grooms are getting married in T-shirts, an option that was unthinkable not so long ago.
But why have we fallen for the sneaker fashion? Comfort? Esthetic? “Well, a bit of everything,” trend experts agree. “The change towards a more informal and comfortable style in our way of dressing began more than 10 years ago, but there is no doubt that the pandemic has accelerated it and the rise of sports shoes is a good example of this aesthetic metamorphosis”, argue in the international agency WGSN, which has spent more than a decade analyzing trends for brands such as Inditex, Mango, Nike, Valentino or Loewe, firms that have also succumbed to this fashion with their own sneaker collections.
Explains Eduardo Sánchez, director of the European Design Institute (IED) in Madrid, that «the new generations (millennials and, especially, the Z) have taken sneakers as the new object of desire and status symbol. Comfort has come into our daily lives and brands have been able to combine it with aesthetics to give us a consumer item like sneakers. In addition, sports clothing and footwear have been detached from the purely sporting context, so that we can dress casually in any situation », he explains.
A turnover of 96,500 million
«Comfort has become a trend in itself and the shoes are its maximum exponent. All firms, from the low-cost ones to the most exclusive, have jumped on the bandwagon of this trend, which, far from disappearing, is consolidated each new season not only in the purely sporting sphere, but also on the street, with models that are already considered true icons”, adds Ana Jiménez Zarco, expert in consumer trends and professor of Economic Studies at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC).
The industry data is overwhelming. Sales of sports shoes continue to grow throughout the world and medium-term forecasts are even more optimistic. Last year’s turnover exceeded 96,500 million euros and it is expected that in 2030 it will exceed 145,000, spurred “by the increase in sports activities and the appearance of new models”, according to the Athletic Footwear Market report, in which it also warns about the increase in the price of raw materials and counterfeits.
This jump from the courts to the street of the ‘sneakers’ has also led to unthinkable commercial alliances between the most advanced sports brands (Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Converse…) and luxury firms (Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Moncler…) «Some provide the technology and the others the cache. It is a winning combination. Sneakers are already considered a fashion accessory comparable to a bag, with customers willing to pay a lot of money for certain models,” says Ana Jiménez. In the opinion of Eduardo Sánchez, «the fashion sector has diversified. The sneakers have entered the exclusive brands, although the classic luxury product is still a standard in many ways. What is clear is that both trends will coexist, with growth forecast in both cases.
23 million euros for an exclusive model
How much would you pay for exclusive sneakers? Specifically, for a limited edition of the Louis Vuitton Nike Air Force 1, signed by the emblematic designer Virgil Abloh, who died last November. 200, 500, 1,000 euros, maybe 2,000? Last February, Sotheby’s raised no less than 23 million euros in the solidarity auction of two hundred pairs of this model -eight times more than expected-, which will go to the Post-Modern Scholarship Fund, an initiative created by Abloh himself to support the education of black, African American, or African descent students. The bid for each pair –available from size 35 to 47– reached an average of 90,000 euros, far from the 12,000 that the organization calculated in the best of scenarios. The sale of the most expensive pair closed at just over 320,000 euros. New owners will receive the shoes in a box specially designed for this limited edition.
#wearing #slippers