Gigi Hadid is here to solve the sneaker debate.
Adidas Sambas are dead! Wait, no, long live Adidas Sambas! Hmm… but what about these French-girl alternatives? Or these Japanese ones? And have you even considered these five other sneaker styles that might supersede everything else ? The race to define the so-called shoe of the season is one that I have entered into on several occasions, to sometimes—I am noble enough to admit—questionable ends.
And yet, in and amongst this desperate reporting, a silent pretender has emerged in the form of Vans slip-ons. I have seen those classic checkerboards bubbling up through the streets of London and Paris, and on famous people like Emily Ratajkowski, Jennifer Lawrence, Olivia Rodrigo, and Gigi Hadid, who was strolling through New York yesterday afternoon in a pair of her own black-and-pewter checked babies. She wore them with a beaded mididress from Bode, a Rebalance trucker hat, and a charm-strewn Miu Miu Arcadie bag while enjoying an ice cream cone.
It’s a style that makes sense for Gigi Hadid, but culture is also primed for a broader Vans resurgence more generally. It is a shoe synonymous with youth, nostalgia, and subculture, specific enough to indentify skaters, SoundCloud rappers, and indie sleazers, and yet broad enough for anyone to project their own coming-of-age fantasies. “Owning a pair of slip-on Vans feels just as much a right of passage as wiping out on a surfboard,” said American Vogue’s Hannah Jackson, who grew up in California. “While I’ve proudly owned other sneakers of the moment—and worn them into the ground—none have the longevity of the humble canvas slip-ons.”
This article first appeared on British Vogue.
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