One Pair of Laces Is Not Enough… Apparently
Shoelaces are annoying. They’re tangly, prone to coming undone, and occasionally cause you to trip over, which is why I’ve recently been converted to buying lace-free, slip-on sneakers (or, if needs be, shoes with those nifty bungee-cord laces from trail shoes).
However, while I’ve been slipping into something more comfortable, a growing section of the fashion industry is pushing the agenda for shoelaces. And not just your regular set of string fastenings, but several fiddly shoelaces all inconveniently stacked on top of each other.
Kyrie Irving, the Dallas Mavericks basketball player and recent Sportsman of the Year nominee, is the latest to fall victim to this frivolous use of shoelaces. With Chinese sportswear label ANTA, the second-largest sportswear brand in China, the basketballer is releasing a range of casual sneakers.
Included in the Kyrie Irving x Anta range is a chunky-soled sneaker with a shape similar to early-naughts skate shoes and an excess of shoelaces.
It’s hard to decipher between the mass of shoelaces on the sneakers, however, I count three different-colored laces per shoe. (That means having to tie your laces six times before being able to step out in the shoes!)
I believe most sane people would agree that having six sets of shoelaces on a pair of shoes is excessive. However, that hasn’t stopped the number of multi-shoelace purveyors from growing.
Balenciaga’s 3XL shoe, another of its signature super-chunky sneakers, comes with two pairs of shoelaces or, in the case of its 3XL Extreme Lace Trainers, is cocooned in several shoelaces. And it has been duped by a sportswear giant, with adidas’ launching a very similar-looking double-laced sneaker.
Adding ridiculous features to sneakers is something we’re used to seeing from Balenciaga, so you could have guessed that it would get in on the extreme shoelace act early. However, If you’ve been persuaded that one set of shoelaces isn’t enough, there's a whole spectrum of shoes now on the market to satisfy your cravings.
Namacheko, a brand I’m especially fond of and tends to fall on the more minimal side of fashion, has a more formal option with its Mountain Derby. Meanwhile, Kiko Kostadinov offers dainty ballet flats tied together with three pairs of laces and Heliot Emil’s rough and rugged hiking boots have a confusing web of laces spawning from a carabiner.
As charm-maxxing, the act of over-accessorizing a bag with many small trinkets and charms, continues to be a popular styling choice, an equally OTT (and equally impractical) footwear trend is bubbling away. I’m going to call this one lace-maxxing.
