Fashion Sneakers

Always put one foot in front of the other — in the direction of your nearest shoe store. Sneakers were shoes originally designed for sports or other forms of physical exercise; they are still used for athletic purposes, but they are now also widely used simply for everyday wear — often worn simply to be fashionable. Fashion sneakers are the branch designed to be trendy: more stylish than basic sneakers.

From Sports Shoe to Fashion Staple

A fashion sneaker can be designed by popular footwear designers, by emerging designers, or even as a DIY project. Fashion designers now see sneakers as a very important segment of the market, and athletic shoe brands have to compete with designer clothing brands that also sell sneakers — the shoe that began as equipment became a design category in its own right.

Fashion sneakers are sold at shoe stores and clothing stores that sell footwear, in a wide variety of styles and purposes, across the categories of athletic shoes, running shoes, tennis shoes and gym shoes. The retail options linked from this page — Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, Famous Footwear and Steve Madden among them — show the range from department store to specialist, and sneakers from lesser-known brands are in high demand alongside the famous names.

Collectible and Trend-Led Sneakers

Some sneakers cross into collecting. Collectible shoes such as Air Jordan sneakers — Air Jordans are always in fashion — are bought, kept and traded as cultural objects as much as footwear, and the collectible shoes term page and the Air Jordan sneakers guide linked from this page cover that market.

The shoe trends page tracks where sneaker style is heading, the trendy shoes term page defines the broader category, and the men's sneakers guide covers the men's market in the clothes guide. Read together they make the page's practical point: choose fashion sneakers by the same tests as any fashion purchase — fit and comfort first, then the style statement — because a trendy shoe that cannot be walked in fails at both jobs.

Choosing Fashion Sneakers That Earn Their Place

A fashion sneaker purchase passes three tests in order. Fit first: a style-led shoe worn all day must be bought by the same rules as a running shoe — length, width and heel hold — because no colourway compensates for a blister. Purpose second: the categories overlap but are not identical, and a court-style sneaker, a runner silhouette and a high-top each pair with different clothes, so the wardrobe the shoe must serve should decide the silhouette. Story third: fashion sneakers carry design meaning — a designer's collaboration, a retro reissue, a limited colour — and the pairs that hold their appeal are the ones whose story the wearer actually knows and likes, rather than the ones whose resale price is loudest. Collectible pairs complicate the third test, since a shoe can be both worn fashion and stored asset; the honest resolution is to decide which it is before buying, because a collectible worn daily is a depreciating asset and a fashion shoe never worn is an expensive ornament.

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