Melinda Gates is right – trainers are the best thing to happen to work at work
For once, British women are paving the way for our sisters across the Atlantic, and not the other way round. During a trip to the UK to promote her new book The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World, Melinda Gates praised us Brits for having the “strength” to wear trainers to work. “I had several meetings today where the women came in trainers and I was like, ‘Why am I not strong enough to do that?’” she told an audience at the Emmanuel Centre in London. “We have to change the culture … the workforce is saying to women all the time, ‘You’re not going to get there unless you are perfect, unless you act a certain way.’”
As a passionate advocate of trainers – or “kicks”, as my cooler colleagues call them – I agree. Trainers are no longer the smelly things you run in, but fashion items. I own at least six pairs and cannot remember the last time I wore heels to work. Actually, I can: it was four years ago, when I tripped up and almost fell straight into my embarrassed editor’s lap. Never. Again.
With trainers now costing five times the average pair of high-street heels, they are quite the status symbol. (I’ve made this statistic up, but I spent over £100 on Nike Air Force 1s recently – given that they make you feel like you are walking on air, they are worth every penny.)
At long last, women are allowed to be comfortable
and cool. And if anyone wants to question this new office dress code, they can jog on. In an old pair of my 5in heels, preferably.