Remember when high-top sneakers were the ultimate status symbol? Those glorious days of the 80s and 90s when our footwear choices were as audacious as our hairstyles? Back then, lacing up a fresh pair of Reebok Pumps or Nike Air Jordans felt like strapping into a time machine that shot you straight to the schoolyard, where the only thing cooler than your shoes was your Walkman blasting the latest hits from New Kids on the Block. And let’s be real, the only thing more tragic than an "I Love Lucy" rerun was forgetting to pump up those Reeboks properly.
Now, high-top sneakers are juxtaposed against the minimalist chic of today’s normcore fashion that could easily be mistaken for an ad campaign promoting the joys of banking. I mean, who knew fashion would swing back to looking like we just rolled out of bed in last season's pajama pants? Remember when back to school meant strutting our stuff in colorful kicks that squeaked like a squeaky toy? We were practically the official mascots for personal expression, channeling our inner Madonna and ensuring that every pair of shoes made a statement—usually unintelligible, but definitely loud.
And don’t even get me started on the variety! One store in the mall had more types of laces than a Spaghetti Western had bad guys. Flat, round, neon, reflective—one could swap laces faster than you could say “Tarzan,” assuming you had a spare 45 minutes between episodes of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” But nowadays, nobody seems to care, as if they've all adopted the “barefoot chic” aesthetic urban hipsters love (y’know, the kind you can find at hipster cafes where “organic” means it was grown on your cousin’s lawn).
Sure, high-tops may be relegated to the realm of nostalgia for many of us, worn only by retro enthusiasts and those of us who haven’t quite accepted the onset of adulthood. But we’ll always have that feeling of triumph we felt when we successfully braided our shoe laces into complex designs that could rival most middle school math problems. So, in honor of the high-top sneaker empire that fell as spectaculously as a Blockbuster video store in the age of Netflix, let’s all dig around in our closets, find those dusty shoes, and blast some Boyz II Men. Because nostalgia is just our way of reminding ourselves that the 90s were like a great mixtape—messy, hilarious, and full of moments that we’d never trade for a pair of boring sneakers.