The rise of the alpha trainer sees sneakers step up in fashion

The news that women’s trainers have outsold high heels for the first time is no surprise in the context of the athleisure trend

The Mintel survey comes as no surprise to anyone who has been to fashion week recently. High heels – which were, until a few years ago, a non-negotiable element of the looks both on and off the catwalk – no longer have the monopoly on status footwear. In 2016, the right trainer is more alpha than Manolo.

The defining moment in the rise of the trainer as fashionable footwear came in January 2014, when Karl Lagerfeld’s dressed every model on his Chanel haute couture catwalk in a pair of Chanel trainers, to go with their £100,000 ballgowns. Trainers had been in the ascendency among fashion’s more minimalist dressers since 2010, when Céline designer Phoebe Philo’s habit of wearing Stan Smiths to take her catwalk bow sparked a slew of front-row copycats, but Chanel’s endorsement broke down the last remaining barriers. Once trainers were deemed chic enough for Chanel haute couture, there was no stopping them.