The rise of the sport sneaker has been years in the making, but it feels undeniable.
What was once reserved for morning runs and gym bags has become a global style language, shaped by comfort, culture and a new understanding of what “everyday luxury” can look like. The shift is visible everywhere, whether on fashion runways, on Cape Town pavements or recently inside THK Gallery, where Salomon’s Invented Reinvented range was unveiled on November 6.
What’s driving the movement goes far deeper than trend cycles. Comfort has become non-negotiable, especially for millennials and Gen Z, who have traded stiff dress shoes and heels for footwear that supports the realities of modern life. The pandemic years accelerated the preference. Once people experienced the ease of living in loungewear and soft, technical shoes, going back felt unnecessary, even impractical.
At the same time, athleisure has reshaped the way we dress, blurring the lines between athletic gear and everyday wardrobes.
Sneakers no longer signal sport; they signal intent, personality and a certain fluidity between work, rest and movement. They have become cultural objects as much as practical ones, propelled by celebrities, musicians, collaborative drops and a thriving resale economy.
The fact that luxury houses including Gucci, Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton treat sneakers with the same reverence as handbags or couture has cemented the shift.
Salomon’s Sportstyle category sits squarely within the new landscape, where performance design and urban culture coexist. At the Cape Town reveal, the XT-6s, ACS+ models and newer silhouettes felt less like utilitarian gear and more like sculptural pieces — technical, yes, but also deeply tied to contemporary aesthetics.
This mirrors a wider global appetite for performance-inspired “sportstyle”, where rugged soles, cushioning systems and all-terrain features are embraced for everyday use. Brands including Hoka, On and Salomon have become frontrunners of a trend rooted in capability but adopted for style.
Salomon occupies an interesting space in this moment. Born in the French Alps in 1947, the brand has long been a technical authority, trusted by runners, hikers and mountain athletes.
However, in recent years, something unexpected happened: the world of fashion caught up and consumers’ voices were heard.
The rise of athleisure, prioritisation of comfort and the growing appeal of rugged, technical silhouettes brought the brand into everyday wardrobes.
The Invented Reinvented range feels like the culmination of that convergence. It merges the brand’s engineering-first ethos with a design language shaped by urban culture, art and modern movement. The gallery, part white cube and part gathering space, felt like an apt setting for a category that exists between worlds.
Models such as the XT-6 and ACS+, global icons seen everywhere from trail races to Rihanna’s street style, were presented alongside fresh iterations that highlight the evolution of sportstyle.
The shoes are layered, sculptural and unmistakably technical, but also refined in a way that resonates with today’s fashion sensibilities. They sit comfortably within the global trend toward performance-inspired “sportstyle”, where people embrace shock absorption, rugged soles and high-tech materials not for sport, but for daily life.
The new collection also underscores how much sneaker culture has changed. Retro runners from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s may be having their moment, and chunky “dad shoes” continue to stride along, but the appetite for something more functional, more engineered, is growing. Consumers want sneakers that work as hard as they look.
What makes Invented Reinvented interesting is how naturally the collection fits into a local context.
Cape Town’s unique intersection of mountains, coastline, design studios and city streets mirrors exactly what the sportstyle category speaks to: movement between worlds. Not escape, but connection.
The rise of sporty sneakers isn’t simply about comfort, it is about rethinking how we move, create and express ourselves.
Salomon’s Invented Reinvented range is available in limited quantities through Archive and salomonsports.co.za.
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