The ubiquity of slip-on shoes and the rise of innovative lace-free designs suggest a possible decline in the traditional shoelace. From hiking styles to sophisticated dress shoes, the convenience and performance of lace-free options are attracting a growing number of wearers.
Are shoelaces becoming superfluous? It’s a question I ponder with increasing regularity. My Instagram feed is flooded with slip-on shoes that require no fastening, from pouffy pull-ons crafted from nylon (Merrell, Keen) to refined rubber styles (Sorel x Proenza Schouler, or Tretorn x Kassl) and soft leather shoe-boots with chunky soles (The Row). Retail stores are filled with them, and so are pavements: from catwalks to cafés, there are people who have simply slipped on, and stepped out.
My own shoe collection is chocka with styles that require no fastening at all. I spend about eight months of the year wearing a black pair of Keen’s Uneeks, a hiking style with a slingback; I only regularly lace up when I don my running trainers. Yet that recurring question of whether we are seeing the death (or at least, the demise) of shoelaces reached a new peak recently, after I wear-tested a pair of On’s brand new marathon shoes, which have no laces. Unveiled in July 2024 and made using a spray-on fibre, they’re in effect an ankle-high sock with a sole attached. Far from a gimmick, they’re proven to stay on (and keep a runner’s foot locked in) for 26.2 miles. Hellen Obiri won the 2024 Boston marathon and bagged bronze in the Olympics in July wearing them. Laceless shoes began to seep into the mainstream during the pandemic, when many people were not getting properly dressed or walking far. Birkenstock Boston clogs became the de facto style, known as the ideal “two-mile-radius shoe” — easy footwear that derived its name from an imagined distance people were walking to the corner shop and back. Laces soon felt laborious, and Salomon’s bungee-cord sneakers then jumped to the fore as a practical, effortless option. Fast-forward five years, and the slip-on shoe has grown into an entire category of footwear, some of which you can wear to dinner and the office. Even sneaker brands are polishing u
FASHION SHOELACES LACELESS SHOES SLIDE SHOES TRENDS
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