Sneakers that Defined 1990s Britpop

In the 1990s, England was home to a unique sartorial mashup of mods, hooligans, and school teachers. Spearheaded by the two vanguards of Britpop (the combustible Gallagher brothers from Manchester, and the ‘Southern Softies’ from Essex), Oasis and Blur took it to the studio in an attempt to reign during the battle of Britpop.

But the rivalry extended well beyond Radio 1, and as more talent filled the airwaves (Jarvis Cocker, Richard Ashcroft, Suede, etc.), the noise from the 90s came to reverberate across England’s zeitgeist, informing style, politics and sneakers.

Rejecting the morose navel-gazing of grunge from across the pond, the sneakers of Britpop featured everything from terracewear icons to mod revivalism, as Britain looked to stomp their way into the millennium riding a wave of economic optimism and cultural influence.

These were the sneakers of ‘Cool Britannia’.