After studying the top five choices from our six panelists, we have chosen three sneakers (there is no No. 1, just top three, listed alphabetically) from their picks we believe were the standouts for the first half of the year. Just as a reminder, panelists were asked to picked their five favorite sneakers, with the only restriction being that the style was available to purchase from a regular retailer (no one-off resellers like Ebay, etc.) during the January through June period. These rules we believe reflect the reality of how women buy sneakers, building a wardrobe including everything from canvas classics to higher-priced launch-day shoes. We do also kind of hope that while we picked three silhouettes, you will see by looking through all our panelists’ choices that there really was no clear cut winners, simply because women’s choices are as unique as they are.
And the winners are…
1. Adidas Stan Smith: The style that launched a thousand imitators, Adidas took this style out of production in 2011 and relaunched it this year. Beloved by the fashion world (Phobe Filo is a fan) the shoes were the unofficial fashion show attendee shoe in February and has maintained its momentum as a summer staple that reflects the trend clean, white classics with extra points for authenticity.
2. Nike Lunar Elite “Fashion Week”: The sneaker wedge has always been a tad controversial. Viewed as strictly a fashion item, most of the performance brands have opted not to offer a version. Everything changed in 2012 when Nike decided to enter the space and launched the Sky High Dunk. Fast forward two years and Nike chose to put its back into the silhouette and launched the Lunar Elite wedge. Sleek and modern, it really is a next level wedge that leaves all the competition in the dust. The “Fashion Week” pack was the first and our panelist seemed to really gravitate to the black and white color-themed New York version.
3. Nike Roshe Run ‘Palm Trees”: We all know of the phenomenon that is the Roshe, folks have fallen hard for this shoe. In the case of the “Palm Trees” version, it’s difficult to say why, but for some reason the print really stroke a note for female sneaker lovers. Truth be told the shoe saw very narrow distribution but there was something utterly charming about the graphic that made it stick in people’s minds. Part of it was the play of black on white (there’s that color theme again), but it was also the whimsy of the trees, too, that seemed to perfectly reflect a summer state of mind.
Next up, the No. 1 collaboration for January-June.
