Spanx founder Sara Blakely knows better than anybody that, oftentimes, innovation is borne out of frustration. “I had bought these cream pants that hung in my closet that I couldn’t figure out how to wear—the thong showed, everything showed—and so I created my homemade solution to wear under those pants that were better than anything else I could find on the market,” she says of her billion-dollar idea. Now, Blakely is tackling her next point of frustration: stilettos.
“I’ve been publicly saying someone should invent A comfortable high heel and I just kept waiting,” Blakely tells Vogue. “I’m not waiting anymore. Clearly, this is not on anyone’s agenda.
” Today, Sara Blakely launches Sneex, a “luxury hybrid stiletto” which retails between $395 and $595. The sneaker heels were created over nine years with patent-pending technology that claims to provide the comfort of a sneaker with the height of a heel. Originally, Blakely wanted to design a comfortable stiletto that looked, well, like a stiletto.
“I was really interested in being disruptive,” she says. “The construction of a heel hasn’t changed much in a really long time. I find that interesting.
Why? Why haven’t they?” After working with Spanish manufacturers to help create the shoe, Blakely found herself saying, “I just want to feel like I’m standing in a sneaker, but be in a 3-inch heel.” And thus, Sneex were born: “When I said that out loud, my development of a classic pump pivoted to the merger of the two.” Blakely has always been her own bellwether.
“I own stilettos and I own sneakers already, but I don’t own the combination of the two. As a consumer I wanted the combination of the two,” she says. For her, the shoe is the intermediary between dressy and casual.
(She cites Sneex as ideal for the classic jeans-and-a-nice-top outfit formula.) “I designed them to be able to wear every day, but 100% women will embrace them and wear them formally. Women are already wearing regular sneakers in formalwear, so I think that that is going to happen for sure,” she says.
“I imagine a lot of brides wearing the white pair.” Just as she sees Sneex serving a wide range of occasions, Blakely also imagines people of all ages slipping on the sneaker heels. “Just like Spanx became for all women, I really see women of all ages embracing the shoe,” she says.
She’s already asked women that she knows to test drive the shoes. “I’ve already seen some younger girls that have styled this with shorts and tube socks, and then I’ve seen women who want to wear it with really classic slacks and a blazer.” That doesn’t mean that she’s abandoned her original plan though.
“I totally will create a comfortable traditional looking heel,” she says. “I’ve got all the technology and all the innovation now to do it, and I’m super excited about it. But I also like giving women and consumers something that doesn’t already exist.
” The luxury sneaker heel does already exist, though. Balenciaga has done it under two different creative directors: Nicolas Ghesquière for fall 2012 , and Demna with the X-panders for spring 2021 menswear . Miuccia Prada created kitten-heeled soccer cleats for Miu Miu’s spring 2021 collection and Daniel Lee offered his take for Bottega Veneta’s spring 2022 .
Isabel Marant’s sneaker wedges dominated the 2010s, but Prada and DSquared2 have also given them a go. Bella Hadid has endorsed Ancuta Sarca ’s heeled sneaker boots, while Cardi B has rubber-stamped DSquared2’s wedge, and Padma Lakshmi wore the Isabel Marant shoes last summer . “Well, one thing we didn’t do is just take a sneaker and put a heel on it,” Blakely says when I mention the other shoes on the market.
“This is a very different kind of design. This has real intense innovation built into the shoe. The three main pain points that I wanted to create in the shoe had to be done through breaking the mold and redesigning an entire new [shoe] that didn’t already exist.
” The three points Blakely sought to address with Sneex were widening the toe box, redistributing weight so that it’s split between the ball of the foot and the heel, and creating more arch support. Blakely says she has gotten positive reactions from people who have tested out the shoes. “The women that have put them on, they almost all immediately start dancing—like spontaneously bust out into dance—and then they take off running,” she says.
“And then I’ve had several women actually cry. I have footage of them crying.” I decided to road-test a pair of Sneex for myself.
From a purely aesthetic standpoint, sneaker heels are never something I would pick for myself—something I told Blakely when she asked me what I thought of the her iteration. I didn’t like sneaker heels when they were popular in the 2010s, and I don’t like them now. But, in the name of journalism, I was willing to set aside my personal tastes and give them a try to see if they were really as comfortable as advertised.
I opted for the red and orange colorway with a pink Velcro strap, called the Tepper, which will be available in Sneex’s October drop. I wore them over the course of several days around the Condé Nast office, out to drinks with colleagues at the Tribeca stalwart The Odeon, and on my commute, which included a 10-minute walk to and from the train. For the record, I am quite particular about heels, thanks in part to my own anatomy.
I have extremely high arches and long toes that often get smushed in close-toed shoes. That said, I am not averse to heels: depending on the season, I will often wear a pair of open-toed mules with a 2.5-inch heel from The Row, or 3-inch block-heel Reformation boots for around the office.
While generally more comfortable than some other heels I own, I can’t say that wearing Sneex came without hiccups. The shoes are only available in whole sizing, which, for a brand with such an emphasis on comfort, seems like an oversight—especially for a shoe nine years in the making. I usually wear a size 7.
5, so I tried both a 7 and an 8. In an 8, I found myself sliding around in the shoe and wobbling in the heel. To feel more secure, I tightened my Velcro strap to the point of numbness in my feet.
In the 7s, my toes crowded at the toe box and I felt a lot of pressure on my heels, even when sitting down, although they were more comfortable to walk in and offered more ankle support than the 8s. Blakely, too, has worn her Sneex on a handful of occasions. “The few times that I’ve worn it out publicly,” she says of her design, “I have people wanting to photograph it; I had to ask them not to.
I had people, almost every time, want to write down the actual spelling of the brand name and the date that [they’re] coming out. I can’t think of [another] time that anybody—multiple people—stopped me and wanted to ask me what my shoe was.” Another common reaction, which took Blakely by surprise, was the commentary from men.
She reports reactions ranging from “That’s the coolest shoe I’ve ever seen” to “What is that?” “There’s something about this being a sneaker vibe with the heel that men are really responding to,” she says. “They either ask me to make it for them in their size, or they say, ‘I cannot wait to give this to my wife.’ The men are very emotional about this shoe.
” The reaction online has been different, however. After the Sneex website went live a few days ahead of today’s launch, the product made its way over to X where commenters offered early feedback . “This is too literal.
Making a heel look like a sneaker is not solving the issues that cause the discomfort,” one user commented. “My mom would love these. Maybe she’s the target market,” another added.
Some people were very excited about the product, writing “Hell yeah! I am all for this!!” and “These look super cool.” Others, meanwhile, were not as enthused. “Would rather die than wear this,” one person noted, while another shared, “I saw the headline and I got excited, and then I zoomed in on the pics and was like wtf is this unwearable hideous nonsense.
Do they hate us? How did this idea get approved? NO.” Traditional media has also been critical: in a recent post, The Cut wrote of the shoe, “Did we not suffer enough when we, as a society, had to experience the wedge-sneaker trend of the 2010s?” When it came to my own experience wearing Sneex, the aesthetics certainly got me a lot of attention—though not necessarily for the reasons Blakely intended. While walking with my coworker, Maddie, to The Odeon for a post-work drink, we heard a snicker.
I turned around to see a young woman around our age walking with her partner, looking right at the shoes. “Did she just laugh at my shoes?” I asked. “She laughed,” Maddie confirmed.
That said, they were a conversation-starter among a different demographic. As Maddie waited for our drinks at the bar, I sat down next to an older man. “Those are some shoes!” he said.
After wearing Sneex myself, I can confirm that they are fairly comfortable, though not without some issues—namely related to the limited sizing options. While it is definitely more pleasant than a heel, it is not as comfortable as a sneaker, which sets up the wearer for disappointment. Additionally, while Blakely has some name recognition thanks to Spanx, that doesn’t necessarily translate to the luxury market, which is what Sneex aligns with both in terms of marketing language and price (albeit on the lower end of the scale).
When brands like Miu Miu, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, and Isabel Marant have their own iterations, Blakely is entering an already-crowded market, as opposed to a far more open one for traditional heels that are genuinely comfortable. (At time of writing, Balenciaga X-panders are on the resale market for $750 , while a pair of now-sold-out Miu Mius were sold for as low as $328.49 .
The Isabel Marant sneaker wedges retail for $745-$770.) While my Sneex may not be leaving my closet anytime soon, if Sara Blakely does manage to invent a comfortable heel that looks like a heel, I’d certainly be willing to give it a try..
