Is the rise of 'urban hiker' style about a passion for walking – or something less wholesome?
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Loading... - Eugenie Jolie
- 11 Sep 2021
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Ben Nevis, compasses and Kendal Mint Cake might seem like unlikely candidates to be on fashion’s moodboard, but the urban hiker look is big this season.
The look’s due north is the hiking boot. It comes with the most vertiginous of fashion endorsements: for his final Louis Vuitton menswear show earlier this year, designer Kim Jones, alongside Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss, walked down the catwalk wearing unmistakably mountain-ready boots. At the autumn shows they were popular with street-style stars, too – see German fashion editor Veronika Heilbrunner, who wore hers with a sleeping bag-style padded jacket, ideal for cold nights under tarpaulin. Bella and Gigi Hadid are also big fans of the walking boot, stomping around downtown Manhattan as if it’s the Matterhorn.
Don’t get your ordnance survey map out just yet though; this isn’t really about the great outdoors. Walking might be a picturesque hobby for our Instagram age, but when it comes to fashion’s penchant for hiking footwear, at least, this is about a designer take on practicality that will work fine on city streets, less so on the Pennine Way. At Gucci, the Flashtrek walking shoe comes in upscale leather and suede and, at over £700, it would be a shame to muddy them. The embellished version (£1,080), decorated with emerald-green gemstones, even more so. At Off-White boots come in camel-coloured leather with bright yellow laces, while at Jimmy Choo one version of the Hillary boots have a trek-averse heel.
According to the global fashion search platform Lyst, searches for hiking boots have gone up by 43% in the past two months alone, with Ganni, sportswear experts Moncler and Off-White the most viewed brands. But the urban hiker look is not just about footwear – brands such as North Face and Patagonia continue to score high in the style stakes, helped by savvy collaborations such as Junya Watanabe’s recent pairing with North Face for outerwear, including a jacket inspired by the Dolomite sleeping bag.
The continuing trend for ugly fashion, which comes Justin Bieber-endorsed, is likely adding fuel to the fire – what is “uglier” than a cag-in-a-bag? Add to all this the lingering influence of gorpcore, a neologism coined last year from the acronym “gorp”, which stands for “granola, oats, raisins, peanuts”, or trail mix. Gorpcore encompasses all manner of camping attire – fleeces, bumbags and unironic anoraks – none of which would be out of place on the frow this autumn.
It is a look that doesn’t seem set to melt away with the snows – at the Ganni spring/summer 2019 show hiking boots were given a warm-weather twist, worn with slip dresses and tie-dye skirts. To stay on trend, think Alfred Wainwright up a fell. And, if you don’t fancy forking out for Gucci, get yourself down to Millets instead.
