If you were on any street style blog in the 2010s, chances are you would have come across a particular mutt breed of footwear: the sneaker heel. French designer Isabel Marant’s wedge sneaker, launching the trend with its release in 2011, was perhaps the most coveted of all. A suede-panelled basketball-style shoe with a puffy tongue, the wedge spawned an outbreak of copycats in the high fashion world, from Giuseppe Zanotti to Marc Jacobs .
The striking shoe was everywhere – on the feet of models off-duty, fashion editors, celebrities and bloggers. Remember, this was a time before sneakers had been fully embraced by the fashion world and were acceptable footwear at work or on red carpets. The sneaker heel was a kind of gateway drug to fashion’s sneaker obsession – a bridge between smart and casual, street and catwalk.
2012 was peak sneaker wedge: Jennifer Lopez, Lindsay Lohan, Gisele Bundchen and Jessica Szohr. Credit: Getty Images While the shoe hybrid eventually faded into obscurity, banished to the backs of wardrobes alongside other relics of the 2010s like chunky necklaces and coloured jeans, it has recently made a comeback. The first signs that a sneaker heel renaissance was imminent were in the early 2020s.
In 2021, Marant released a new version of her beloved sneaker heel, the “Balskee”, which was a couple of inches higher than the original. In August this year, the designer announced a collaboration with Converse featuring a version of her wedge heel. Loadin.