Marcel Winatschek

The Gospel of White Adidas

Ballet flats give women flat, formless feet—they’re the footwear equivalent of giving up. Most people can’t actually walk in high heels without looking like they’re crossing a cobblestone street in slow motion. And flip flops, regardless of price, always look cheap. Which leaves sneakers as the only correct answer, and as someone who has been specifically, helplessly fixed on women in white Adidas since I was old enough to notice shoes, I feel completely vindicated by this logic.

There was a blog called Sneakergirls—run by two women and a guy—that functioned as direct counter-programming to the heels-and-filters fashion blog scene, documenting women in colorful athletic shoes looking genuinely good. It fed my particular neurosis well. The only upgrade is women in Converse Chuck Taylors, which hits somewhere I couldn’t articulate without embarrassing myself. Someone should have made that blog too.