Absolutely not, argues Kit Hesketh-harvey
My issue with trainers is that they become scuffed
PLEASE understand: I am not against trainers for the reasons that, say, a suburban golf club likes to ban them. The petitbourgeois snobbery of the socially insecure isn’t in my nature, truly it isn’t. Forced to choose between those horrible things called ‘golf shoes’ and the £500, gold Balenciaga (seriously: Balenciaga) beauties sported by TV’S style-guru (and wife of the Conservative MP for Stourbridge) Jay Hunt, when she pitched up to stay the other weekend, the trainers would win, hands down. (Or should that be feet down?)
I will also cheerfully admit that there are occasions, too, when trainers are not only acceptable, but desirable. If you’re a nationally celebrated athlete, say, still in your twenties and making a semi-public or charity appearance? Why then, England expects. If you are a hip-hop musician, I reckon that trainers come in under the banner of cultural identity. If you happen to be a long-legged young model of either gender, then sheer aesthetics decree that you look as fabulous as possible, which, alright, might mean trainers.
At the Garden Weekend at Houghton this summer, a philanthropic heiress of considerable vintage pitched up in a sky-blue, A-line frock, with a pink bow in her hair and empireyellow trainers. She looked as good as Grayson Perry, which is rather the point: she had made herself into an objet d’art and it is for its eclectic collection of modern art that Houghton is becoming famous.
At Highclere last June, a lanky, fashionably red-haired young actor arrived for a spectacular, small formal supper in the gilded Music Room. The rest of the company was in black ties or, at the very least, smoking jackets. He was similarly clad—as far as the waist. From there on down, it was jeans and spanking-new trainers. Again, it worked, because Highclere these days is so crammed with actors and actors are, if not exactly art objects, public property. He knew we all thought he looked sexy in a Dan Stevens sort of way and, thus, a contract was honoured.
A third example and a third exception. Nicky Haslam is a national treasure whose eagerly awaited reinventions of his appearance are as much a source of wonder as the Harvey Nichols shop windows. And if, aged nearly 80 and entering his boyband period, he breezed in as he did at Stratfield Saye in mint-condition Diesels, who were we to dare think that it looked common? Nicky is the acknowledged arbiter of common, ipso facto…
The key phrase there is ‘mint condition’. My issue with trainers is that, after so very few outings, they become scuffed, which means that they have to be washed, which, in turn, means they look tired and dreadful. If not washed, one cannot escape the fact that they hum like a Roquefort after a fortnight in the glovebox of a Delhi taxi.
The patina, by contrast, on my late fatherin-law’s beloved and burnished Tricker brogues merely increases as the lifetimes roll by. You can gaze into their depths, much as you would into the mahogany of an 18th-century Irish sideboard. The blue, hand-tooled cowboy boots I bought at a charity auction 25 years back, already pre-loved by Carly Simon (yes, honestly), trumpet their quality and provenance. A pair of really good slippers (Turkish, carpet, not crested velvet. Crested velvet are right down there with golf shoes and I’m certain that Nicky would agree) is pretty much go-anywhere.
No, I’m not against trainers, per se. All I would point out is that there are so many, far more beautiful alternatives to trainers, appropriate to every occasion. Close down the sweatshops, say I, and head ye instead to Lobb’s.