Whether you're still wearing Adidas Sambas or were so turned-off by the sight of Rishi Sunak wearing a pair that you've gravitated towards the cool new alternatives, it's true that trainer trends have been dominated by just a few styles in recent months. One pair slowly emerging as a returning hero, however, was probably a stalwart of your teenage years; perhaps you've never stopped wearing them, or maybe you've rediscovered them recently via Vinted. Either way, the best-dressed celebs have spoken: Vans are back, baby.
At London Fashion Week in September, Harry Styles made an appearance at the S.S Daley show, a brand in which he invested earlier this year. To see the designer's debut womenswear collection, Styles was, naturally, dressed in Daley's creations – an embellished navy shirt and matching trousers – except for his footwear. On his feet, he wore a classic pair of black and white Vans.
There was some shock, surprise and delight in the Grazia office, as many of my colleagues decided this was the encouragement they needed to dust off their old trainers. Julia Harvey, shopping editor, says: 'As a Vans stan - I lived and died in my white slip-ons, classic blue lace-up Vans and had a 'smart' all black pair that I managed to pass off as school shoes back in the 2010s - I'm thrilled to see their long overdue return.' Really, though, the Vans renaissance has been quietly bubbling for some time.
Emily Ratajkowski has been wearing several different styles of Vans for a while now, the first of which she debuted last summer. She was closely followed by Sofia Richie, who was photographed in a plain pair of Vans and, earlier this year, Gigi Hadid paired her floaty summer dress with the checkerboard style seen on every emo boy I ever fancied circa 2006.
If your old pair of Vans is merely a fondly-held memory, you may be pleased to know that the classic styles are currently on sale for Amazon Prime Day. With big savings applied for another day (the sale finishes just before midnight on Wednesday 9th October), you could be giving Styles a run for his money before we've even reached the weekend.
Shop: Vans In The Amazon Prime Day Sale 2024
Hannah Banks-Walker is Grazia's head of fashion commerce. She has previously written for the likes of Harper's Bazaar, The Financial Times, Glamour, Stylist, The Telegraph, Red, i-D and The Pool on everything from fashion to curly hair (hi!) to the patriarchy. Not necessarily in that order. Find her on Instagram and Twitter. But please don't look for her MySpace profile, which until now was the last time she wrote about herself in the third person.