What Do French Women Want to Wear? Sneakers!
This won’t come as a surprise, but in person, Isabel Marant embodies a certain je ne sais quoi, a French style that is effortlessly cool. Sitting in her Paris studio, clad in oversize black-rimmed glasses, a gray knit sweater tucked into her moto jeans, with a studded belt cinched at the waist, the French designer exhibits ease, comfort, and a bit of rock ’n’ roll.
It’s been more than a decade since Marant launched her first wedge sneaker, which took the fashion industry by storm. Now, she is unveiling a new iteration in a collaboration with Converse, available to shop today. What do you get when you blend Marant’s DNA with a classic American sneaker? Chuck Taylors equipped with a two-and-a-half-inch wedge (of course), featuring a distressed cotton jacquard exterior and her brand’s signature emblem on the side.
“The idea was to make it a bit special, a bit customized, like the way those kids and band singers could tag it, scratch it, and change the laces,” Marant tells Harper’s Bazaar. “It’s very subtle, but I wanted to keep it a bit classic with a timely twist. And of course the main point was to make a wedge version of the Chuck.”
Marant was heavily influenced by hip-hop and rock culture in the original iteration of the shoe, and the Converse × Isabel Marant sneakers embody many of the same qualities. “I always loved this brand. I always lived in a Chuck,” she says. “I mean, all my youth, I used to wear that, and I still love all of what it expresses in terms of rock star, punk, and all of those different eras.”
While sneaker culture has evolved and changed throughout the years, it was Marant’s Bekett wedge sneaker in 2011 that helped set a new trajectory for fashion sneakers to take center stage for the years to come. While divisive among some, the Bekett was undeniably the It sneaker in the 2010s. The original wedge sneakers were famously worn by Beyoncé in her “Love on Top” music video, as well as by Rihanna, Kendall Jenner, and a myriad of fashion editors. “Sneakers have really boomed since the pandemic and even before. It was coming up, up, up,” Marant says. “Now there are still some girls wearing stilettos and other kinds of shoes, but if you look, I think 95 percent of the people in the street, they wear sneakers.”
I can corroborate that this is true. Sitting at a café in Paris the morning before meeting with Marant, I watched French women stepping out of the subway, on their way to work, school, or to meet a friend. Nearly every one—young and old—wore a pair of sneakers.
Sneaker culture is nothing new right now, with labels like Balenciaga, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton having released their own chunky fashion sneakers, but Marant was there before it became a trend. Her sensibility has not wavered since, because it was always about blending comfort and style. “It’s true that I work with clothes all day long and sometimes for myself I need to be more plain, not to interfere with what I’m creating, but of course … the clothes I’m designing are also talking a lot about what I love and who I am. For me, comfort, wearability, easiness is a must more and more, because you don’t want to compromise and not feel good in your clothes.” Ultimately, staying true to the Marant and Converse ethos, that’s what the sneakers represent: comfort and effortless style.
Isabel Marant and Converse celebrated the launch with a chic Parisian-meets-American fete on Tuesday evening in Marant’s Paris atelier.
Guests dined family-style on a menu of classic American comfort food: burgers, fries, and chicken nuggets. There was butter disguised as waffles in a classic trompe-l’oeil twist, along with a side of rolls. Marant kicked off the evening with a special toast, celebrating the sneakers’ launch globally.
Shop the new Converse × Isabel Marant sneakers below.
Julie Tong is the Senior Commerce Content Lead at Harper’s BAZAAR overseeing digital shopping content across fashion, beauty, and lifestyle. She has over 10 years of fashion industry experience and is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism (B.A.). Prior to joining the Harper’s BAZAAR team, Julie spent five years at Vogue to launch their inaugural digital shopping vertical. She has honed her fashion expertise and skills at a variety of fashion institutions over the years from Interview magazine to Yahoo Style, Karla Otto, Who What Wear, and more.
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