In 2026, athleisure is a cornerstone of style culture – as integral a category of contemporary dressing as, say, knitwear or tailoring – making owning a decent roster of trainers more crucial than ever before. But while trainers as a genre may never go out of style, the same can’t be quite said for the of trainers that are in favour among those in the know.
Right now, there’s a strong case to be made for the return of the humble white trainer – for the workaday simplicity of a Converse Jack Purcell, a Reebok Freestyle (as seen on Celine’s spring/summer 2027 runway) or an Adidas Stan Smith – all ideally lovingly scuffed rather than box-fresh. But a recent stint following the art world’s travelling circus, from Frieze in London to Art Basel in Paris, revealed a new trainer worth having on your radar. So numerous were the sightings of kaleidoscopically hued Salomons in both cities that you’d be forgiven for thinking you were on an Alpine hiking trail in high summer rather than at an art fair.
Now, the reasons art fairs are such wellsprings of trainer inspiration are as much practical as they are stylistic. After all, no matter who you are – or how supposedly superior your VIP status – no one is spared a high step count. Over the years, that’s prompted a number of gorpy trainer silhouettes to find favour among the globe-trotting culturati. Asics designed by Kiko Kostadinov, for one, became something of a uniform among a certain milieu of bright young things, helped in no small part by the designer’s associations with artists such as Ryan Trecartin and galleries including Morán Morán. Then there’s On, the Swiss sportswear giant whose distinctive, tube-cushioned soles have become ubiquitous on the feet of everyone from stealth-wealth collectors to style-savvy students stalking the booths. And I must say, I felt rather vindicated to see a fair number of attendees join me in sporting Miu Miu’s spiky-soled Bubble trainers.
But it was the trainers by Salomon that really stood out – particularly the XT-6, a longstanding favourite among trail runners – with the general consensus being that the louder the colourway, the better. On the numerous occasions I crossed paths with Freddie Powell, owner and director of rising London gallery Ginny on Frederick, over the past fortnight, he was never without a pair in some highlighter-bright hue, citing their superior comfort during long days spent on his feet at the booth.
Once I’d spotted him wearing them in Paris last week, I couldn’t stop seeing Salomons everywhere – both within the Grand Palais and beyond. Out in the real world, for example, street-style diviners like Bella Hadid and Hailey Bieber have long been devotees of the style, and when I recently interviewed Nadège Vanhée, Hermès’s artistic director of womenswear, she was sporting a flame-yellow-and-orange pair. The visionary designer regularly cycles through what appears to be an expansive collection for her post-show bows.
As for what’s fuelling their current appeal? In the supposed era of so-called “personality dressing”, there’s something about the techy eccentricity of the XT-6’s colour-blocking lifts an otherwise normcore look – a relaxed tailored suit or a Canadian tuxedo – with a lilt of whackiness. And there is, after all, no better way of signposting how good your taste is than by seamlessly working items that would typically be dismissed as downright garish into your look. Nor, it seems, is there anything much chicer than wearing shoes designed for mountain treks on a gallery hop through the Marais. Or so the consensus in Paris right now would suggest, anyway.
XT PU.RE Trainers
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