Sneakers with a stiletto heel: the ugliest shoes I’ve ever seen

Over the past few months, I’ve written about sneaker hybrids that take some getting used to. There were the sneaker sandals by Keen, the sneaker loafers by New Balance or the sneaker slippers born from a collaboration between New Balance and Miu Miu. Undoubtedly, they all fall into the dividing but extremely popular category of the ugly shoe. And they all had my complete understanding. I got the vision, their vibe, understood their appeal. But the latest sneaker crossover triggers on so many levels.

Sara Blakely, the founder of the shapewear brand Spanx, provided plenty to talk about last week. Why? She launched her new brand Sneex. On her website the American writes: «I’ve been dreaming of inventing comfortable high heels since I started wearing them. I craved a completely new kind of shoe, something that sparked playfulness and made me excited to get dressed again.»

Remember, this «something» is a sneaker stiletto and pretty much the ugliest footwear I’ve seen in recent years. I don’t mean ugly in a carefree, provocative or ironic way. Rather, the shoe has the aura of a shelf warmer advertised as cool in a poorly frequented village boutique. The only difference is that a pair of Sneex costs between the equivalent of 340 and over 500 francs.

Sara’s been working on comfortable high heels for years

Indeed, Sara Blakely’s been toying with the idea of creating comfy heels for over a decade. Back in 2013, she expressed her annoyance in the TV show 60 Minutes Australia. She said people had sent a man to the moon but had not yet invented comfortable high heels. And that she’d had enough of it. In an interview with InStyle, the 53-year-old said: «I also get fired up when something in the marketplace doesn’t change for years – and in this case – centuries.»

Together with her team, she spent several years working on heeled sneakers and tackled three main problems with stilettos. With the heeled sneaker, the weight distribution between the ball of the foot and the heel has been balanced out, the gap between the foot and the curved sole has been closed and the front part of the shoe has been shaped so that it doesn’t pinch the toes.

According to the press release, you have to try them on to feel the «magic hidden inside». Blakely goes on to say that women either cry, dance or take off running, when they try on the shoes. «They can’t believe it’s a 3-inch heel!» But I don’t need to try the shoe on to know that the high, thin heel will get jammed between cobblestones or stuck in soft tar – just like any other stiletto heel. And that the eight-centimetre heels change with your posture and shorten the calf muscles.

Heeled sneakers: brace yourself for a hype

The fact that Sneex is entering the market at this point in time is probably due to the fact that a comeback of heeled sneakers has been predicted for around three years. In other words, the idea is anything but new. In 2011, French luxury brand Isabel Marant brought the Bekett to market – a high-top sneaker with a platform heel. In the early 2010s, this model adorned pretty much every female celebrity’s feet. Shortly afterwards, sporting goods manufacturer Nike came up with the Ski Hi model – a cheaper alternative that also made its way into my adolescent shoe collection.

It’s actually in keeping with the spirit of the times that Sneex shoes look like Frankenstein’s failed experiment. The problem is that they deny how ugly they are. This sets them apart from other successful ugly shoes such as Crocs or Adidas slides. Their charm lies precisely in the fact that they don’t take themselves too seriously. That nonchalance is then transferred to the wearer.

Sneex are too full of themselves

Sneex, however, are dead serious. They want to encourage women to «reach new heights, to push the envelope and to never settle». Sneex sees itself as a sensational innovation that relieves us of a centuries-old dilemma. When, in fact, there’s a much simpler solution out there: shorter heels.

And I would know. Regular ankle boots with six-centimetre heels have accompanied me on numerous city trips with daily step counts in the five-digit range. Besides, kitten heels, which are five centimetres high at most, are one of the biggest shoe trends at the moment. And if you want to cheat a little while wearing sneakers, platform models including the Adidas Gazelle Bold or nostalgic wedge sneakers are far more fashionable. Sneex’s unscrupulous marketing drivel is so 1990s teleshopping and certainly not 2024 fashion.