Pastel sneakers ended the all-black era
For a decade, black trainers were the safe choice. Then everybody's feet turned mint, lilac and butter yellow.
SA
Sade Achebe
Style editor
Filed under
Style
Shoes, skateboards and whatever is hanging from the ceiling. Style as a mood, not a price tag.
The short version
1
Black trainers ruled for a decade. Now it’s mint and lilac.
2
Pastels look good in photos, which helps.
3
Pick one pastel and keep the rest plain.
Walk through any city centre this autumn and look down. The sea of black trainers that defined the 2010s has broken up. In its place: mint green, lilac, powder blue, butter yellow, sometimes all of them on one shoe. It happened slowly and then all at once.
Black trainers were popular for good reasons. They went with everything, hid dirt and looked serious enough for an office that had given up on dress codes. They were the uniform of people who wanted to look like they were not trying. Which is to say, almost everyone.
Why pastel, why now
Fashion historians like to link colour to mood, and it is tempting here. The early 2020s were heavy. People spent years indoors, dressed for video calls from the waist up. When they came back outside, a lot of them wanted to be noticed for something cheerful.
There is a more practical reason too. Pastel shoes photograph beautifully. They pop against grey pavements and look good in the tiny square of a phone screen. A generation that documents its outfits cares about how shoes look in a photo as much as how they look in a mirror.
Black shoes said I want to disappear. Pastel shoes say I am in a good mood, and I dare you to comment.
How to wear them without looking like a sweet shop
Pick one pastel and let it be the only colour below the knee.
Pair them with plain, darker trousers so the shoes carry the colour.
Match the pastel to one small thing above: a sock stripe, a watch strap, a bag.
Keep them clean. Pastels forgive nothing, and that is part of the point.
Will it last?
Probably not forever. Trends swing, and black will be back when the mood turns again. But something has shifted. People have remembered that shoes can be fun, and fun is harder to give up than it is to pick up.
I bought my first pair of lilac trainers in the spring, as a joke. I have worn them every day since. Strangers comment on them roughly once a week, always kindly. My black ones are in a box under the bed, waiting for a mood I have not been in for a while.
From the camera roll
Pink, with socks to match
Lilac, the gateway pastel
Suede, nicely worn in
“Black shoes said I want to disappear. Pastel shoes say I am in a good mood, and I dare you to comment.”
— Sade Achebe
Reader mail
Letters about this post.
“Bought mint ones. My mum asked if they were slippers.”
“Lilac with grey jeans. Changed my life a bit.”
“Still in black. But I’m thinking about it.”
SA
Written by
Sade Achebe
Sade covers what people actually wear on the street, not the runway. Her lilac trainers have their own fan club in the office.
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