The sneaker industry has been in a funk all summer, but with the fall fashion season kicking off this week in New York, brands are beginning to tout their next big ideas.
And those ideas appear to be quite similar: The white tennis shoe is coming back.
On Tuesday, Nike and Reebok announced lifestyle sneaker collaborations with the designer brands Kallmeyer and Celine, respectively. Both collaborations offer a luxury imprint on a classic lifestyle shoe: for Nike, its Tennis Centre sneaker, and for Reebok, its Freestyle Lo.
Those collaborations, releasing this week, come on the heels of Adidas executives detailing plans to revive the Stan Smith tennis shoe beginning this fall. Speaking in July about the tennis shoe’s revival, Adidas chief executive Bjørn Gulden said, “We have big indications from fashion shows, from consumer groups, from research that this direction is coming.”
It’s not unusual for sneaker brands to align in a similar direction simultaneously. Just three months ago, the major shoe companies outfitting World Cup players each chose a shocking shade of pink for their soccer cleats. But the parallels in Nike, Adidas and Reebok’s visions for lifestyle footwear come at a dire moment for the industry, with fashion-oriented footwear selling poorly. In August, Dick’s Sporting Goods cut its earnings forecast at subsidiary retailer Foot Locker for the rest of this year, saying lifestyle shoes simply aren’t resonating with consumers and will continue to sour through the holiday season.
