Paris (AFP)

Cool, fresh and dynamic, basketball is "a pill of youth," says the creator of luxury Pierre Hardy, one of the first to have diverted the sports shoe into a fashion piece that has submerged the street and podiums.

Uniform Fashions weeks, sneakers also accompany the evening outings, dramatize ultrafeminine dresses or accessorise the business attire.

The most powerful teen dress code is the common denominator intergenerational, because everyone wears it, American rappers like Pierre Cardin, 97 years old.

At the last lingerie show of Savage X Fenty by Rihanna, models in sexy underwear sported sneakers. Even the Paris Opera "who dresses like you and me" wears historical characters.

According to the Stylight fashion platform, luxury sneakers - among which Off-White, Alexander McQueen or Balenciaga are the most coveted - have surpassed as a strong piece the handbag. Consumers around the world are ready to invest "302 euros on average" for a pair of designer.

- "Incredible creativity" -

In the latest study of another platform, Lyst Index, a pair of Adidas is on the list of the 10 most popular products for women while a Nike and Adidas are among the most sought-after fashion pieces by men .

"The silhouettes, even very sophisticated are built around the sneakers.They have become real shoes with incredible creativity," said AFP Pierre Hardy who designs shoes for Hermes and his own brand after working at Dior and Balenciaga.

Thus, the Berluti house founded in 1895, a former boot-maker appreciated by its costumes, has just announced the arrival in shops of new Gravity sneakers that "combine the craftsmanship and the technicality of the materials". In black or orange, they exhibit enhanced contours, a nod to the tradition bottière.

King of architectural shoes, Pierre Hardy says he launched himself 15 years ago in basketball to bring the segment of luxury "very sophisticated" product "fresh, youthful and dynamic" that would return "to a memory of when we were teenagers and we did not care to be well dressed ".

"Basketball was a way out of another vocabulary of creation, for men it allowed us to introduce materials that we did not use at all, strong colors, more fun designs ..." mode is primarily aimed at a certain youth who was immediately recognized in it.

"A woman who can no longer wear heels can be even more fashionable and fully assume that comfort," he adds.

"Fashion and luxury have seized the sports shoe at a time when comfort has become decisive for the search for our clothes," says fashion historian Denis Bruna, curator of an exhibition on the history of footwear and gait at the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris.

- Run or not run -

For Alexandre Samson, head of contemporary creation at the Paris Fashion Museum Palais Galliera, the success of sneakers is part of the "normcore" movement, particularly embodied by Gorgien Demna Gvasalia, artistic director of Balenciaga, who has just left his own brand, clothing.

The choice of basketball is dictated by active lifestyles, the profusion of bikes and scooters in the urban landscape or ... by anxieties.

In Vernon Subutex 3, Virginie Despentes' latest novel, a Parisian bourgeoisie who "knows how to do everything in her shoes" puts on the Bataclan for the first time her white Fila to go to a concert, for fear of having to run in case of attack.

As "running is not certainly an elegant act", luxury houses "have diverted the sneakers from their first use" by making them heavy or unstable with which "we do everything but run," says Alexandre Samson.

If fashion historians predict a reversal of trend and the return to more conventional shoes even binding, Pierre Hardy remains confident.

After all these years of liberated approach, "it will be difficult to resist a certain discomfort", he concludes.

© 2019 AFP