Why do sports brands release sneakers with heels and no backsides?

Sneakers are always about sport, comfort and movement. It would seem to be a fair statement. However, in the 21st century, it is no longer so.

author and creator of the street culture blog First Soupe

Knows all about how heeled sneakers came to be and who needed it.

Sometimes fresh releases in the sneaker industry look pretty strange: for example, the new adidas Yeezy pair looks more like valenki than sneakers or even boots.

Moreover, adidas has been hinting to its audience all through the second half of 2021 that designer Jeremy Scott is back in the sneaker game: the world has seen his sneakers with wings again, as well as his cute pool slippers, which are better not to wear to the pool because they are decorated with a teddy bear face.

Adilette Slide Jeremy Scott x adidas Originals

Of course, basically all of this is anti-sneaker: it’s like sports brands are trolling themselves. They release shoes that not only aren’t meant to be athletic, but don’t even have references to sports or deny them.

For luxury brands like Balenciaga, of course, this is nothing new: the sneakers of the iconic Triple S model weighed almost a kilogram each and had nothing to do with sports. Nevertheless, the brand also has models that try to “mimic” the sporty silhouette. Fresh sneakers of the brand users immediately compared with a pair from the mastodont of running – Asics.

Anti-sport sneakers from Nike, adidas, New Balance and so on are still new to people. Because the sports giants in general have the opposite task: they need to create the illusion of sport for people who may never start playing sports.

And for the last two decades, this situation has been going on: brands produce sneakers for lifestyle (ordinary everyday walking), but include technologies from the past, as if creating a sports atmosphere for ordinary people – not runners, not basketball players, but just for clerks and other not very mobile city dwellers.

New Balance 2002r

Such sneakers, imitating sports, declared, for example, models New Balance 2002r with technology N-ergy, adidas Ozweego with Adiprene and a lot of sneakers with a lot of technology.

However, the sports theme is too obvious for sneaker connoisseurs (note – not sports fans). Pairs that skillfully reproduce the spirit of competition and records, without any doubt enjoy success (Nike Air Jordan 1 immortalized already legendary sports career of Michael Jordan). But sneakers cause a wild excitement if they are truly rare, funny and even crazy.

Perhaps the record holders in the top of anti-crossover shoes are sneakers with heels. The most famous appearance of such shoes was in 2013. Then the already mentioned designer Jeremy Scott included in his collaboration with the adidas brand not only plush sneakers, but also sneakers that can add at least 10 centimeters to your height.

The heels appeared in both the adidas lookbook and Vogue, where Scott’s models wore the shoes in a fresh collaboration. Three years later, heeled sneakers appeared from the Puma brand in a collaboration with singer Rihanna, and importantly, this release was stated as a women’s sneaker, while many of Jeremy Scott’s sneakers – both bears and heels – could be found in larger sizes.

Even later – in 2018 – the “heel triumph” wanted to repeat Nike in collaboration with Comme des Garçons, but they limited themselves to just one silhouette, and their pair turned out as if it was “too normal.” Snickerheads still remembered Jeremy Scott for scandal and flamboyance, and it was really hard to repeat his experience.

Toy sneakers are the second in this impromptu top, and they’re definitely not for kids. The master of this genre – again Jeremy Scott, who apes the public with kitsch and sometimes not very clear humor (for example, sneakers with shackles no one appreciated).

adidas Originals by Jeremy Scott “Pink Poodle”

The designer embodied his creativity in collaboration with adidas, and there is a huge choice here: colorful bears, pink poodles, cheerful pandas, joyful gorillas and much, much more….

Next in line in the top – sneakers made of strange materials, which are not adapted for anything at all, not to mention sports. And here the first place is given to Nike brand, and more precisely, its skateboarding division Nike SB. We must admit, it is these pairs that most often turn out to be very expensive on resale.

One of the oldest of these is the 2006 release of the Nike Dunk SB High Papa Bear, which were furry. Whether kickflips are comfortable in furry sneakers is a rhetorical question. Whether they can be resold for more than $1,000 is a question with an unequivocal answer of yes.

But there have also been relatively recent releases of similar pairs made from intentionally inappropriate materials, such as the 2020 collaboration between Nike SB and skate shop Strangelove.

The release of the sneakers was timed to coincide with Valentine’s Day, and the pair itself was made of pink velvet fabric for a good half of the time, which deteriorated from the slightest contact with the asphalt. For the sake of fairness on the promo Nike immediately showed them “in action” and already beaten, hinting that in skateboarding such sneakers will not live long (as well as most lovers in real life).

Well, and conclude our top, perhaps, the most hated by snickerheads models are sneaker-sandals. Why they are made and for whom – a serious question, and no one knows the answer to it. Their recipe is as follows: the brand takes the most favorite model of its audience, brutally cut off its back and sells a little cheaper than the original sneakers.

New Balance 990v3

The functionality of these models really isn’t there. They haven’t become a full-fledged summer shoe due to the fact that they simply don’t have a back. But these are not sneakers now, but some stumps. So, “stumps” are made of New Balance 990v3, adidas Stan Smith, Nike Air Force 1 and many other models.

The Nike Air Force 1 VTF Slingback

It’s up to you to decide which side to take – the “real sneakers” or not quite. Nevertheless, everything is not so simple even in ordinary sports shoes – who knows what they will slip you: a collab in heels, pairs made of plush or a toy bear as a gift. Although such sneakers are not suitable for comfort and even less for physical activity, they are suitable for an unusual way to join fashion and art.