Hokas Potus -- are you wearing tech bro trainers like Biden?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hokas-potus-are-you-wearing-tech-bro-trainers-like-biden-78t63876f

https://archive.is/K61qw



As if there isn’t enough to get your head around with the American presidential race, American presidential trainers are becoming a topic all of their own. Are Joe Biden’s new trainers, the hovercraft-like Hoka Transport, evidence that, despite being in his ninth decade, he fits right in around Washington’s hipster neighbourhood Shaw? Or do they represent the latest attempt by an 81-year-old, who has proved himself several times over to be unsteady on his feet, to step up to the re-election challenge rather than fall flat on his face (again). Either way, they are considerably less grotesque than Donald Trump’s gold “Never Surrender” high-tops. These launched last month for $399 and — I am sorry to have to break this to you — have already sold out.

What Biden’s Hokas certainly exemplify is just how confusing contemporary fashion can be. Because one person’s sensible shoe — “conceived”, so the brand’s website opines, “at the intersection of lifestyle and performance” — is another person’s style statement. We are seeing an unprecedented overlap in the sartorial choices made by the young and determinedly cool with those made by the not-young, who may be interested in being cool, or may not be. (With Biden, that’s for you to work out.) Some people buy Hokas simply because they think they are practical, and other people buy them because they think Hokas make them look as if they only buy things that are practical. I know. Keep up. Either way Biden’s in the running with big names such as Harry Styles, Gwyneth Paltrow and Gisele Bündchen. This is why Instagram accounts such as @gramparents, a world of chinos, plaid shirts and hike-ready footwear, has 255,000 followers, 254,999 of whom are hipsters.

The brand was launched in 2009 in Annecy in the French Alps, which — its founders believed — could be better conquered by runners in trainers with an oversized outsole. Hokas soon became popular with runners more generally, thanks to the mix of maximum cushioning and minimum weight. In 2013 it was acquired by the American footwear firm Deckers Brands, which also owns Ugg and Teva, two more brands with their origins in the strictly functional. Hoka One One, to give it its full and rather pompous name, comes from a Maori phrase meaning “to fly”. Though presumably Biden is wearing his so as not to, having already gone flying on stage at a US Air Force Academy graduation ceremony last summer. It was the Silicon Valley bros who were the first to adopt Hokas as a uniform, their chosen garb for global domination more suited to an overnighter in nearby Yosemite National Park than the office.

It was only a matter of time before the look caught on. And what an irony, given that the bros partly dressed like this because they were, in origin, geeks who hadn’t left their bedroom between the ages of 12 and 21, and wouldn’t know cool if it hit them in the face. These days London’s so-called Silicon Roundabout, is full of people who look as if they are about to pitch a tent, in North Face parkas, cargo pants and either Hokas or the even more popular Salomon XT6, both of which have toggled elastic in place of conventional laces because — that signifier confusion again — either they are too busy and dynamic to tie their shoes, or they can’t bend down. There’s even a word for it. Gorpcore. It’s an extrapolation of the original normcore, and supposedly refers to the hiker’s snack of choice, “good ol’ raisins and peanuts”. No doubt Biden is hoping it also stands for “good ol’ returning president”.

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