"For the Autumn edition of City AM The Magazine, Dr Eliza Filby surveys the footwear landscape Back in the 1990s, the image of a corporate woman rushing to the office with trainers hastily slipped over tights - formal footwear stashed in a bag or left under a desk - was ubiquitous from Canary Wharf to Kuala Lumpur. But like cash payments and regular trips to the cinema, the pandemic put paid to that."
"The trend of wearing trainers over tights has a traceable cultural origin: Melanie Griffith in the first iconic movie to celebrate corporate feminism, Working Girl. Released in 1988, it was all power suits and trainers, questioning how far women should and could contort themselves to make it in a working world designed by and for men. Trainers over heels embodied the workplace contradiction for that generation of women: the blurring of old and new feminine standards,"
The post-Covid workforce has moved from stilettos to sneakers in professional settings, driven by hybrid working and relaxed dress codes. The 1990s image of trainers worn over tights—formal shoes carried or left under desks—gave way as commuting and office urgency declined. The trainers-over-tights trend traces culturally to Working Girl and symbolised tensions between efficiency and polish. Over 30 years office attire has casualised and high heels have declined; trainers began outselling heels in the UK between 2015 and 2017. Women aged 35–44 now lead trainer purchases. The retreat of the heel signals broader shifts in workplace power and gender norms.
Read at City AM
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