But what about the Disruptors? It seems natural to place the blame for the shoes’ popularity at the feet of Demna Gvasalia, who debuted the Balenciaga Triple S on his menswear runway in January 2017, kickstarting a wave of oversized, unwieldy trainers. According to Marc Canipa, Fila UK’s head of footwear, though, the Disruptors’ return came several years before this - in 2014. The decision to look at the archive was more inspired by Raf Simons’ reimagining of adidas’s Ozweego in 2013 than the Triple S.
“(In 2014) Fila had a ready-made, fit for purpose shoe - which was developed way back in 1996 - sat, gathering dust in the archive,” Canipa says. “We upgraded materials, updated the fit and there we had the first access price point, chunky sneaker ready to go to market.” Uptake from retailers was slow at first, Canipa says, but then the model really took off - per Google Trends, searches for the Disruptor were low before picking up slowly in Spring 2017, and soaring in popularity in December 2018. They’ve since been released in a variety of colourways and varying silhouettes, from sandals to platforms.
According to Gen-Z shopping behemoth Depop, year on year from 2017 to 2018, there was a 583 per cent increase in searches for the Fila Disruptor in the UK. Today, there are well over half a million posts on Instagram under the hashtags #filadisruptor and #filadisruptor2. And although the shoes are gender neutral, a look through the hashtags shows they’re mostly popular among women.
While they were technically reissued before Balenciaga kickstarted dad shoe mania, the trend - along with a rise in late 90s fashion nostalgia - helped them gain momentum they lacked to begin with. The Disruptors’ proximity to more expensive styles was a key selling point: an Elle article in January 2018 entitled “I Love These Ugly Grandpa Sneakers” praised their similarity to other celebrity favourite designer sneakers, including the Triple S and Louis Vuitton’s Arclight. And they had some famous fans too: Emily Ratajkowski was spotted in a pair, as were various runway models off duty at fashion week. “The Sneaker Taking Over Your Instagram Feed Is Only $70” wrote InStyle. “Fashion Girls Can't Get Enough of These Affordable Sneakers” claimed WhoWhatWear.
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