Trainers for grown-ups
Why men are ditching the clown shoes for sophisticated sneakers
I have a friend who is what is known as a sneakerhead. He loves trainers, and for him heaven is a shop like Kick Game in Burlington Arcade, where rare trainers are afforded the type of treatment that rare vintage Rolexes get in the building’s neighbouring watch stores. Here you will find special-edition sports shoes over which men like my friend — and yes, it is often men — will really geek out.
Now what makes this tale pertinent is that my friend is a man of a certain age. This means that he has decades of sneaker love under his belt. But unlike so many of his peers, who have come to the conclusion that it may be time to embrace footwear that is a little more, well, becoming of our years, he is still holding the faith. And I applaud him for it. I really do. It’s just that I’d feel a tad self-conscious if I were rocking the same shoes.
So what exactly is appropriate when it comes to shoes? While we can all appreciate a beautifully crafted Derby, Chelsea boot or Oxford, it’s probable that if we have experienced the sporty comfort and look of trainers that it’s a tough habit to kick (pun intended). And yet, there can be something a little mid-life crisis about a pair of the latest Jordan 3s.
But worry not. Help is at hand in the form of the non-trainer trainer, a type of shoe that is being offered by companies that seem to recognise this problem. Witness Zegna’s Triple Stitch, a simple leather sports shoe, leather-lined, with a rubber sole and criss-cross elastic to hold it closed instead of laces.
Or the Original Achilles waxed-suede or leather sneakers by the American brand Common Projects, which has been ploughing the unadorned sneaker furrow since 2004. Then there’s Swedes CQP, with the Otium military-inspired sneaker, Italian Brunello Cucinelli and his nubuck, suede and calfskin models, and the French Lanvin and its leather Ddb0 and leather-and-suede Dbb1 styles.
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And what about that celebrated maker of beautiful heels for women, Manolo Blahnik? Here’s a man who in person chooses to refer to his low-cut Semanado shoes in calf leather and suede as “tennis shoes”, instead of “trainers”, making a semantic distinction (though on his website the term “sneakers” sneaks in).
Of course, all these “non -trainers” are nothing of the sort. Regardless of what Mr Blahnik may say about his handsome Semanados, all of the above absolutely belong to the sports-shoe family, and in fact resemble nothing more than the types of trainers we might have worn for PE and trips to the local tennis courts in the park back when we did PE and played tennis in the park. And that is surely part of the appeal — a sort of vintage nostalgia that the older gentleman can tap into.
For this look you could simply go to firms that actually make sports shoes for a pair of classic sneakers. Converse Jack Purcell leather sneakers are a case in point. But an Austrian shoemaker, Ludwig Reiter, which makes its shoes in the 16th-century Süssenbrunn estate in Vienna and specialises in great leather shoes and boots, also does a very nice line in leather trainers.
Till Reiter, a fourth generation member of the family who now runs the shoemaker, explains how back in the Seventies his firm made trainers for the army — literally training shoes — in split leather. “In the early Nineties, the Austrian fashion designer Helmut Lang — who always had an eye for browsing archives and old stock — discovered some of these and requested us to relaunch the production for his collection,” he says. “At that time no one produced leather sneakers.”
Helmut Lang is something of a legend in fashion circles, and he set Ludwig Reiter on a path of producing smart leather trainers. “The great thing about the trainer is that its design and construction is an excellent example for ‘form-follows-function’,” Reiter says. “Every detail has reason, and the style may be regarded a classic of its own. Helmut Lang was very good in detecting such archetypes.”
Closer to home is Walsh, a British outfit founded by Norman Walsh, the man who made the running shoes in which Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile. This firm in Bolton makes athletics shoes, including the Walsh PB, a much-loved style of fell running shoe designed in 1970 and named after Pete Bland. But it is a PG — Patrick Grant, he off the telly’s Sewing Bee programme on BBC1 who I hope won’t mind me describing as a designer of a certain age — who is intent on bringing Walsh to a wider community. Grant has long been a fan of the firm and has just created a limited edition collaboration with Walsh under his Community Clothing label.
“I found a classic Walsh design that I loved in their archive and we used this as the starting point, making some small tweaks and updating it to their current lasts, and adding the colours,” he says. “Our shoe is called the Beacon, after our local Beacon Fell [in Lancashire] and it’s available in five colour options.”
To really look like a grown-up, go for single-colour trainers, like the white tone-on-tone Beacons from Community Clothing or the black suede or white leather models from Ludwig Reiter. The single hue helps to make these shoes look more like, well, shoes, than sports apparel, and that is what we’re going for. My sneakerhead friend would not approve. But then there are some great style icons who have made this look cool over the years. Check out Steve McQueen in his white low-tops. Or James Dean in his. And if you’re grown-up enough to know who those two gentlemen are, then you’ll be happy to be similarly shod.
manoloblahnik.com; lugwig-reiter.com; communityclothing.co.uk
