For a long time, it felt as though shoe trends were getting increasingly casual, rather than the other way round. People (ahem, me) were wearing Ugg boots to work, or Sambas and a tracksuit in the club. And essentially – after a few years of WFH cosiness – sneakers became the go-to footwear option for street style heads.
Over the past year or so, however, the pendulum has begun to swing in the other direction, and everyone’s looking quite well turned out. We’re seeing loafers and Wallabees, and now, it seems, a whole load of Paraboot derbys or Paraboot-adjacent smart shoes. From guys cosplaying The Wolf Of Wall Street in big boy suits, to girls smartening up their jeans and shirts for the workplace, the classic Paraboot derby (and similar iterations, or copycat silhouettes) have begun inching their way onto the streets.
It’s not hard to see how this happened. They’re an old school corporate-style shoe (Paraboot, the brand, has been knocking around for well over a century), and we’re currently amid an old school corporate-style vibe shift (or “Boom Boom”, as trend forecaster Sean Monahan recently dubbed it).
As writer Emilia Petrarca explained for The Cut, “Think flashy cars, power suits à la American Psycho, tanning oil, furs and the dark wood of uptown restaurants… Boom boom is looking like you’ve spent money for the sake of looking like you’ve spent money.” The Paraboot derby – or the lace-up loafer – can easily be viewed within this same umbrella. As Petrarca herself noted, all the men in her life have “recently ditched their Salomons for Paraboot derbys.”
British GQ even went as far as to ask whether the Paraboot derby (in this instance, the Paraboot derby Michael) could be “the most important shoe in menswear right now”. “The ‘Michael’ remains a do-it-all alternative for a generation of style-conscious guys weaned on the SNKRS app,” wrote Jake Woolf, “one that aligns with the ongoing craze for chunky, geriatric-adjacent footwear, and gels nicely with the vision of rumpled prep popularised by brands like Aimé Leon Dore, Noah, and, more recently, J Crew.” And, well, if it’s coming for the guys, we know it’ll be coming for the girls too.
Even I’ve started to become quite obsessed with the idea of smart lace-up shoes, and I’m a die-hard trainer nerd (for me, it’s all about the Dr Martens Lowell Crocodile, which sits somewhere between a derby and a classic DM). Will I be going full Boom Boom like the rest of London right now and pairing them with a big-shouldered suit and an even bigger faux fur? As the saying goes… you know what? Hell yeah.
