The Top Trends In Men’s Trainers Right Now

Whether you’re more minimal mid-top or OTT high-top, there’s no denying that trainers have edged their way into the fashion canon over the past few years.

Even Tom Ford, a designer famed for his sexy, smart eveningwear, showed a trainer-heavy (or ‘tennis shoes’ as he likes make to a point of calling them) collection back at London Collections: Men in January.

On this evidence, it’s fair to say trainers aren’t going anywhere soon. These are the styles to watch out for if you intend to keep up with the pack.

1. White Out

The epitome of minimalist style, the low-top white trainer has been an off-duty wardrobe staple since the days of Newman, Dean and McQueen.

Today, adidas’ Stan Smith sits front and centre when it comes to all-white models. Last year’s reboot of the iconic silhouette saw these simply styled trainers become the must-own silhouette for 2014-15, yet the Superstar, the German giant’s similarly pared-back model, isn’t far behind in the popularity stakes.

While still comparatively undiscovered by the mainstream, expect the shell-toe design to dominate city streets the world over going forward.

Adidas Stan Smith

Adidas Superstar

At the more premium end of the spectrum, American-Italian label Common Projects has long been a key advocate of the trend.

Its signature Achilles Low model has spawned a slew of inspired-by takes, from contemporary brands like ETQ and Filling Pieces to storied British shoemakers such as John Lobb.

2. Block Colour & Print

We could just point you in the direction of the adidas x Pharrell ‘Supercolour’ pack on this one but the collaborative release that spawned a Pokémon ‘gotta catch ’em all’ mentality is actually indicative of a much wider trend.

Indeed, while subtly styled white trainers are making their presence felt, it seems our appetite for bold sneaks in eye-catching colours and all-over prints is equally voracious.

Take Nike’s patriotic red, white and blue Independence Day Air Force 1 VTs and Sock Darts, for example, or the sportswear giant’s sleek Air Huaraches, which have been reworked in various saturated hues including the fire engine red NM ‘Hot Lava’.

3. Got Gum?

Born out of practicality, gum soles were initially developed for indoor hardcourt sports – their rubber construction designed to provide better grip than plastic-soled footwear, while ensuring no marks were left on playing surfaces.

Today, however, the five-a-side staple has moved off the courtside bench and into many a sneakerhead’s starting line-up. Classic gum-soled styles that still have us rapt include adidas’ Gazelle, Hamburg and Samba models, while rival sportswear juggernaut Nike’s ‘Triple White & Gum’ pack marries gum soles with all-white uppers, another of our top trainer trends.

4. Let’s Get Textural

Not only are we seeing bold statement uppers and unusual soles, the very fabric of trainers themselves is changing. With numerous brands now offering woven styles or exotic fabrications, it’s clear that – for some – plain leather or canvas just doesn’t cut it anymore.

First up? Cork. Previously the stuff of noticeboards and bottle stoppers, Nike has applied cork-based uppers to its Air Force 1, Blazer Mid, SB Janoski and Air Max 90 models so far, which gives these kicks not only a unique look, but an inimitable texture too.

Nike Blazer Mid Cork

Nike Air Max 90 Cork

On a more luxurious note, snakeskin has fast become a firm favourite within the world of high-fashion sneakers. Balenciaga and Gucci have both used reptile skin to give their footwear a more distinctive appearance for spring/summer 2015, while Nike offers a more affordable alternative in the form of the Air Python.

5 Trends Bob Marley Rocked Before You

Long before Bob Marley was immortalised on student bedroom walls, shrouded in smoke and dreadlocks, he embodied Hardy Amies’ proclamation that a man should pick his clothes with care, then look as though he’s forgotten all about them. He was a man who could elevate anything he put on, just because it was draped over Bob Marley.

Marley’s wardrobe came accessorised with same insouciance he brought to his songwriting, as though beauty were just something that happened to him. He never appeared to agonise over it, to have to dig, workmanlike, into his creativity, like Johnny Cash, whose all-black outfits echoed the tenor of his art.

Which is why Marley should be this season’s go-to style icon. As menswear shifts, shakes off all that’s overwrought and emerges streamlined, simpler – just a whole load more relaxed – it’s time to evict Don Draper from your moodboard and get more mellow.

Bob Marley’s drapey fits, his understanding that you can be comfortable and still wear something that slays a room, should be your sartorial inspiration. Four decades ago Marley was already pulling off menswear’s power moves. Now he’s passing the torch.

1. Double Denim

Rocking the same fabric top-to-toe is a time-honoured menswear move. Normally, though, it’s called a suit, the uniform of the establishment stooge come to harsh the good times. Marley’s office demanded a different kind of workwear, so he reached for something as rugged as it was relaxed: denim.

But as Marley knew, steering too matchy undermines precisely that laid-back aesthetic you’re trying to cultivate. To stress the point again, this isn’t about looking ready for the office. Pick your jeans first, in a roomy cut. The artist needs space to breathe. Then grab a shirt a shade or two lighter, to break up the block of blue. To turn the look platinum, opt for a denim button-up with detailing around the shoulders, which drags the eye up and takes you from cattle rustler to rock icon.

Accessorising with the guitar is ideal, but a chocolate leather folio will do the job too.

2. The Roll Neck

As we’ve mentioned more than a couple of times, any look can be elevated by adding a roll neck. Sling one on under a suit and you lend your tailoring a nonconformist edge. Swap out your winter knitwear for something that doesn’t stop at your shoulders and you immediately upgrade to a slimmer silhouette. And as Marley demonstrates, the Beatnik favourite gives any outfit an artistic swagger. Even when it’s paired with flares and Cuban heels.

To lean more towards Marley than the Milk Tray Man you want something that hangs slightly off your body. Figure-hugging cuts are great for espionage, less so for kicking back backstage. And don’t be tempted by the slew of patterned options, which push your look on-piste. A neutral-coloured design in cashmere or merino, with ribbed cuffs and hem, is the easiest way to take everything in your wardrobe from support act to headliner.

3. Track Tops

Long before high fashion rebranded it as ‘athleisure’, Bob Marley proved sportswear deserved promotion from the pitch to every day. When your life is spent on the road, comfort is king. But it’s how you wear it that turns a casual staple iconic.

First, fit. Baggy tracksuits hinder your movement on-field – for someone like Marley, who’d start a pick-up football game anywhere there was a ball, even off-duty outfits needed to be practical. So keep your jacket’s body slim and nipped to the waist.

Next, colour. Bob Marley was no health goth. He knew that repping your team came before being on-trend – and for a card-carrying Rastafari that trio of green, red and gold carries more weight than any club crest.

But to anchor bold hues, you need to dial down what’s around them. Especially when your track jacket is crafted from a fabric with just enough shimmer to make you dazzle even the guys at the back of the stadium. Of course, it helps when you accessorise with a smile that’s just as luminescent.

4. Military Green

Just because you’re a pacifist, it doesn’t mean you can’t take some style cues from the guys in the ranks. But Marley infused his uniform with personality, knowing that it’s better to stand out than appear regimented. Upgrade your olive shirt and leave it open over a quartermaster approved grey crew neck to nail the drapey anti-fit aesthetic that’s all over this season’s runways.

But know that the difference between a laissez-faire look and making people think you dressed out of the roadies’ wardrobe is getting the fit right where it counts. Your shoulders should sit snug against the seams of your shirt, so that the rest of fabric hangs just off your torso, rather than fluttering out whenever the wind blows.

You may be a sartorial hero, but let’s leave the capes to the ones in comic books.

5. Relaxed-Leg Trousers

As the Northern Soul kids discovered a decade earlier, some billow in your lower half ensures your dance moves always make an impression. Whether you’re on stage in front of thousands or owning the floor at your local reggae night, loosen up your legwear to free your movements and give your wining some added energy. Even if you don’t go for Marley’s full flare.

But as with the overshirt, it’s not just about swapping your medium for an XL. Instead, look for pleats, which give you more room in the thigh but can still be tapered below the knee. And unlike the ankle-swingers of recent years, this is a style you want to break on your shoe.

Finally, hone what sits around it. Opt for the oversized elsewhere and you look like you’re playing dress up in dad’s wardrobe. Make like Marley and keep your shirt snug. Then pair with Amies’ lack of concern for everything you’ve got on. You’ll find it’s easy not to stress your look when it affords you so much room to move.

Where Do Trends Come From?

The move towards relaxed silhouettes started years before they appeared on the high street.

The story always plays out the same. You look at the runway pictures and think, yeah, maybe. Those slim-fit jeans have been feeling a bit restrictive recently. And didn’t your boss turn up at work in spray-on jeans the other week? You spot what appeared at fashion week on some street style don. Then an Instagram influencer. A glossy editorial.

When it hits shelves nine months on you’ve already decided yes, this one’s for you. You buy, try, and feel awkward when friends comment on its debut. Then in creeps comfort – body and brain acclimatise to a new shape. What was a statement becomes default. Facebook proffers a skinny-jeaned time capsule and you shudder. This shape, this is the one that actually flatters a man’s body.

Time ticks on and your wardrobe expands until, one day, you try something new. Saw it in an ad, thought why not? It feels… OK. OK becomes everyday. Eventually, wide legs get muscled out. Facebook. Shudder. This is the shape. Repeat.

“A fashion trend lasts two to five years,” says Henrik Vejlgaard, a trend forecaster whose book, Anatomy Of A Trend, analyses how these cycles bubble from idea to ubiquity, then eventually burst. However immune you think you are, however static your style, at some point trends will infiltrate your world.

They move from insiders down the fashion food chain, percolating through society until what was once cutting edge becomes the norm. Each group endorses the trend for the group behind, but taints it for the ones before. You see Zayn’s souvenir jacket, you want it. Your dad takes a shine to yours, you take it to Oxfam.

But there’s a distinction, Vejlgaard says, between a trend and a fad. Fads burn bright, then fade away, a six-month burst of colour, or a pattern that appears for a season then goes back in the drawer. Womenswear tends towards the former, says Graeme Moran, head of fashion and features at industry bible Drapers: “One season will be all black and white, the next everything’s colour. But menswear changes slowly. It’s more gradual.”

Which is why, when these shifts do occur, they can seem titanic. For a decade, we’ve dressed slim, as Hedi Slimane’s skinny-obsessed Dior tenure met Don Draper’s suits and a generation of men suddenly discovered how clothes could really, really fit. But as the trend filtered down, what seemed transgressive on runways became the norm.

Apprentice candidates, fashion’s canaries, popped up in narrow lapels and cropped trousers. Dads no longer saw their sons’ skinny jeans as effeminate, but as a viable option. In reaction, silhouettes expanded. Tailoring lost its padding. After a decade, trussed up menswear seemed to – aaaah – relax.

The pattern is so predictable; it can seem like the customer isn’t even involved. When runway season sees variations on such narrow themes – a ubiquitous fabric, an omnipresent cut – you end up wondering if they’re all in some collusive WhatsApp group. “Hey Raf, let’s do big trousers this year, yeah? lol Demna.”

The reality is less sinister, if no less opaque. Your wardrobe is predicted two years ahead of time. But it’s done by Powerpoint, not text. And though forecasters don’t dictate what you’ll wear, they do at least steer with a heavy hand. Because fashion is business – a leviathan, $3bn global business – and money loves certainty.

The further down the runway brands can see, the less chance they’ll show skintight tailoring when customers want something that billows. Which lessens the chance an entire season ends up on markdown.

One of the most important hands on fashion’s tiller belongs to Volker Kettennis, a former designer, now menswear director at WGSN. Since its founding in 1997, the company has sifted cultural flotsam to pinpoint how designers translate what they see in the world to their runways, and whether those designs might percolate down to the masses.

Just as importantly, WGSN lets designers approach a new season with some context. Fashion is a tension between the new and the familiar: tip too far one way and you’re boring; the other, customers get spooked. Trend forecasters show designers what consumers want, so they can flex their creative muscle in ways that will still sell. “Being completely in a vacuum is not always sensible,” says Kettennis. “You need to be aware of the space you operate in. The things going on around you. Then you can decide to go with them or against.”

Which means that what hits runways isn’t the output of a single, creative mind, but grounded in research about where tastes are now, and where they’re heading. This process is geared around fashion’s production cycle: from first designs to runway show takes up to a year, then another before the clothes hit stores.

So while brands work on SS16, Kettennis’ team pulls together predictions for SS18. They pore over developments in fabrics and manufacturing, but also what’s happening in film, art, design, sport, politics – “The things that directly influence fashion,” he says, “but also the things that influence designers.”

Which is why, despite designers working apart, common threads emerge. “Exhibitions are hugely important,” says Carol Morgan, a lecturer in fashion communication at Central Saint Martins. Two years on from the V&A’s record-breaking David Bowie retrospective, menswear was awash in the thin white duke’s androgynous shapes and lush fabrics. Morgan predicts that this year’s celebration of punk’s 40th anniversary will also emerge on runways. Which means now’s a good time to get those tartan trousers out of storage.

The move towards a new silhouette also has pragmatic roots. The boom in sneaker culture drove trouser hems upwards, the better to flash those new Jordans. “That [also] affects leg width,” says Kettennis; when they don’t break on your shoe, wider trousers have more weight, so they hang better.

Throw in a resurgent skate culture, a reappreciation of 1990s style, and menswear’s general move more casual, and suddenly it seems like wide legs arrived overnight. But what it really means is that they’re sticking around. At least, until your dad catches on.

How To Wear Side-Stripe Trousers

Of all the strange outcomes from menswear’s recent decision to abandon pretty much all its rules, one of the most pleasing has been the cross-pollination between styles that never used to speak to each other. The suit has ignored its parents and shacked up with a cardigan, to create tailoring you can just shrug on. Shirts have spent a drunken night with pyjamas, producing boudoir garms you can wear to work. And everywhere you look there’s side-striped trousers, the bastard child of sweatpants and a tuxedo. It’s the logical extension of luxury joggers, this decade’s most illogical trend.

According to Mr Porter editor Adam Welch, there’s two factors at play here: designers’ obsession with the 1970s, which they’ve raided for Tenenbaum-style sportswear; and “vintage militaria”, first seen in Dries Van Noten’s spin on British officers’ red-striped dress trousers, now replicated everywhere (those keen on authenticity can pick up a pair of the army OGs at surplus stores or on eBay for a 10th of the price).

The best thing about side-striped trousers is that, because they draw from the pitch and the parade ground, they work in all manner of ways. “It’s about bridging the gap between sport and tailoring,” says stylist Millie Rich. “So when styling, always go for an opposing top layer.” That means pairing sporty strides with a chunky roll neck, or smart versions with a sweatshirt.

Below, we identify the two key styles to look out for this season and show you how each can hit that up-down sweet spot.

The Track Pant

A riddle for the modern man: when your joggers are so luxurious they’re indistinguishable from formal trousers, are they still joggers at all? We don’t know. But one way to tip the scales is to add the kind of go-faster stripe that’s long made lads lust after Adidas tracksuits.

“The trousers should be the focal part of the look,” says Rich. Bearing the up-down rule in mind, that means avoiding anything too street-influenced elsewhere, especially oversized logos. “Unless you’re going for a very minimal, thin stripe, use the trousers to make a statement and pair with wardrobe staples like a grandad-collar shirt. That way, you won’t look like you’re coming from the gym.”

The Drawstring Trouser

The tie-up side-stripe sits halfway between two pairs of trousers that are each already halfway between two pairs of trousers (and they say menswear is simple). But they’re less complicated than it sounds: since they bullseye all manner of Venn diagrams, they dress up, down and sideways. “They’re fun, easy to wear and great for adding a touch of character,” says Rich. But don’t be tempted to overdo the detailing. “Stick to one bold colour or a combination of two colours at most.”

For maximum versatility, you need to nail the right combo of form, fit and fabric. Some taper nods to tailoring, but you should have room to move so they still feel sporty. Cozier, weightier materials like wool or denim give the right drape but without shimmer, so you don’t veer into eveningwear. And avoid anything extraneous like pleats or patterns. “You want to ensure the stripe is the boldest part,” says Rich. “Think combos like navy with a red stripe or black with white.”

8 Style Lessons To Take From 2017

School’s not quite out for winter, but we’re counting down the days on the advent calendar. So it seemed like a good time to stop doing any real work and reflect on the year that’s about to end.

Here are 17 of the biggest style lessons that we learnt in 2017, from the best and worst looks to the menswear movements you need to know for the next 12 months.

Conor McGregor’s Wardrobe Is Brasher Than His Trash Talk

Never knowingly understated, Conor McGregor dropped napalm on the promotional fire ahead of his circus act with Floyd Mayweather by sporting a three-piece suit with a pinstripe that, on closer inspection, was in fact the repeated epithet “Fuck you”. (This wasn’t even the most offensive thing about the press tour.)

The Notorious’ tailor David August subsequently made the punchy fabric available by popular demand. Which begs the question of where exactly buyers are planning to wear it – the inevitable rematch?

Streetwear Is Violently Popular?

By no means an isolated example of people getting dropped over the latest drop, fights broke out at the VLONE pop-up in London this summer. A police presence at streetwear launches is now a thing and it comes to something when even Hypebeast is asking whether sneaker hype is too rabid. “Clout” indeed.

Stranger Things’ Dustin Is An Unlikely Style Icon

In November, fans of the eighties-tastic Netflix series crashed the Science Museum of Minnesota’s website in their enthusiasm to cop the perma-permed geek’s purple brontosaurus hoodie he sports in the opening episode of season two.

Meanwhile Nicolas Ghesquière, Louis Vuitton’s artistic director of womenswear collections, designed a Stranger Things T-shirt featuring Dustin and his fellow party members and sent it down his SS18 catwalk, while Topman’s eerily similar merchandise turned the high street upside down.

Trump Has Tape More Incriminating Than Nixon’s

The overwhelming impression that the Trump administration is only just being held together by sticky-back plastic was reinforced by the revelation that the most powerful man in the world uses Scotch tape to affix the slim end of his inexplicably long ties to the other. (Sad!)

It’s perhaps the most bewildering sartorial decision made in the White House, closely followed by Anthony Scaramucci’s blue aviators, Sean Spicer’s stars-and-stripes suit lining and Steve Bannon’s shirting Inception. Maybe make tie clips great again instead?

Love Island Is A Badly Packed Sausage Fest

We’re talking about the cringe-inducing, DVT-preventing skinny legwear. Not what you’d call quad goals. But that was only one crime against fashion in this summer’s muscle-fit, brain-drain reality TV hit. The worst? Everyone dressing exactly the same as everyone else. Like, exactly. Not what you’d call squad goals, either.

A Sneaker Crossed With A Sock Is A… Snocker?

Thanks to technological advances like stretchy knitted uppers, futuristic-looking trainers with no laces or tongues are being lapped up, from Adidas’ urban ninja City Sock to Balenciaga’s Speed Trainer, which sells out faster than Supreme-branded hot cakes. Acne Studios’ Tristan is even striped like a classic business sock – but is still NSFW in most offices.

Blade Runner Is Very Now

We’re still some way off the Los Angeles imagined in the 2019-set original, but not that far, as Raf Simons’ spring/summer 2018 collection was a convincing replicant of the 1982 film in both rainwear and neon-lit Chinatown setting (albeit in New York).

And while the shearling worn by Ryan Gosling in Blade Runner 2049 was a custom one-off, his boots – by US military supplier Bates – can be bought on Amazon by voice command, if not quite yet delivered by robots.

Brands Are Getting #downwiththekids

Dolce & Gabbana sent a stream of millennial social media influencers down the catwalk instead of models at its show at Milan Fashion Week at the start of the year. Meanwhile, Shawn Mendes – AKA the next Justin Bieber – closed Emporio Armani’s SS18 show in Milan. Feel old yet?