YOUR footwear at school was crucial to how you were viewed by your contemporaries. Here’s how your 90s school shoes affected the rest of your life.
Clarks nerd
Yes, your shoes might have been the best-fitting and you have probably gone on to a successful career, but nobody in their early teens cared about that. The truth is that your mum chose your shoes and they cemented your reputation as a nerd from the moment you turned up.
Kickers cool kid
Wow, has that guy got Kickers on? If that was you, you must have been cool, probably had floppy hair worn in a centre parting and carried around a trendy Eastpak rucksack. What a shame that you focused more on your image than your academic work, and you have struggled to match the highs of your schooldays ever since.
Dr Martens club member
Again, image mattered to you, and that yellow stitching was the height of fashion. You would wear your ‘DMs’ to school if you could get away with it, or just at weekends and wear less cool shoes during the week. Either way, you lived in them – until someone walked off with them after confusing them for their own because, let’s face it, everyone had them.
Cheap imitations
Your parents did not have the money for expensive brands or sensibly preferred not to spend it on their long-suffering child’s footwear, so you were left with what were clearly cheap imitations. The problem is that your year group were not so understanding and did not let it go unmentioned. Remember how you dreamed of buying Caterpillar boots with steel toes so you could kick them back, the pubescent bastards?
Woolworths plimsolls/Dunlop Green Flash
The shame. If you didn’t have cool trainers for PE you faced mocking comments and a permanent drop in status. Really you should have been allowed to change schools and make a fresh start.
