Canadian MPs embrace style in office shoe trend

OTTAWA –

You won’t catch Omar Alghabra in a pair of Jordans.

The Federal Transport Minister has been loyal to the Adidas brand since he was a kid playing soccer in Saudi Arabia.

“Adidas was the shoe of choice for kids in the late ’70s and early ’80s,” said Alghabra. Those known as the “originals” – black with three thick white stripes down the sides – were “a big deal”.

That nostalgia drives his current sneaker collection, which often turns heads as he strolls the halls on Parliament Hill or attends a G7 meeting, where his counterparts comment on his kicks.

“Of course positively,” he said.

He also wants to make one thing clear: he’s not a sneakerhead, but an “Adidas head,” which is what only a sneakerhead would say.

This fascination with the history and specific models of sneakers has spawned what is now a multibillion-dollar resale industry, creating a sneaker culture that has now found its way into the workplace, bringing a less formal and less painful type of footwear into fashion. normalized. the office. Even the highest office.

At a Liberal caucus retreat in January, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wore the Nike Dunk Low SB “Los Angeles Dodgers” shoe, with pink on the outsole representing chewed gum players bite.

At the time, he said they were a gift from his son who, “like his mom, is way cooler than me.”

And no, he doesn’t have the Montreal Sesame Bagel Dunk, a Nike shoe styled after the city’s famous food that won him a seat in the House of Commons.

Some attribute the emergence of hillside sneakers to Alghabra. He said he started wearing them as a comfortable alternative during the COVID-19 pandemic, while at the same time realizing he was breaking the norm.

But that’s the point.

“Wearing sneakers is more about breaking tradition than continuing it,” said Elizabeth Semmelhack, director and senior curator of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto.

Throughout the late 19th century and into the 20th century, men in servant jobs were expected to all wear the same outfit, Semmelhack said.

Then came the concept of “casual Fridays,” she said, where men would reveal a little more about who they were in their private lives just one day a week.

The next step was the rise of the tech sector, she said, where innovators could basically “wear playground clothes and be the most powerful men in the room.”

“Sneakers enable both men and women to participate in fashion,” she said. “They are not hypersexualized and can come across as cutting-edge and fashionable.”

Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantman said she has always worn sneakers to work, and that includes the House of Commons.

Lantsman’s favorite sneakers are Jordan 1 Mids, which she says she gets for a lower price because they fit in kids sizes.

She said that the wardrobe of female politicians is always under scrutiny.

But she said clothes have the power to make people feel confident.

Especially if they feel comfortable, she added.

Plus, she said, it makes her more approachable.

“There’s a new kind of politician. People wear sneakers in their lives, and riding in a suit in a park in a suit doesn’t work,” Lantsman said.

For female politicians, sneakers, unlike heels, can have additional symbolic meaning, Semmelhack said, because it shows they’re hard at work or ready for action.

“It’s the equivalent of a man who had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves,” said Semmelhack, who noted that US Vice President Kamala Harris portrays that image when she wears her Converse sneakers.

Back in Ottawa, female MPs, including Treasury Secretary Chrystia Freeland, are often seen wearing sneakers as they run from one meeting to another, but then swap them for a pair of heels as the cameras roll.

That doesn’t work for Liberal MP Lisa Hepfner, who gave up heels after years of wearing them as a broadcaster in Hamilton.

“I can’t even wear them for a few minutes,” she said.

Hepfner is looking for comfortable, cheap and sparkling sneakers. For that extra comfort, she uses Birkenstock insoles in everything she wears.

Guards on Parliament Hill have told her they can identify her by her shoes, she said, even before they see the pin MPs wear on their lapels.

For Prime Minister Mark Holland, sneakers are a form of expression.

“They just feel like me,” Holland said.

“We are in parliament, we wear appropriate suits and clothes for the things that need to be done,” he said.

“But there aren’t many ways to express yourself in terms of clothes, especially as a man. And so it’s a small way to express myself.”

His first pair belonged to former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, who had gifted the Netherlands a pair of red “Chucks” (Chuck Taylor Converse) during the 2011 campaign, to represent a race to the finish.

Red sneakers were a common prop at Liberal events in the closing days of that election, which ended with the Harper Conservatives winning a majority, the NDP forming the Official Opposition, and Ignatieff resigning as leader.

Holland also lost its seat that year.

“You would think it was bad luck because I lost that election, but then it became a thing to wear red Chucks in election campaigns,” said Holland, who returned to the House of Commons in 2015.

“Omar (Alghabra) and I actually had a thing: 100 days before a campaign, we’re going to get a new pair of red shoes.”

The Netherlands now has about 10 pairs of Chucks in different colours. And it’s all low-tops, which he has strong feelings about.

While MPs agree that sneakers are a respectable form of fashion, most don’t see it leading to where things are in the United States, where a Congressional Sneaker Caucus exists to foster bipartisan relations.

Holland suggested, however, that he could be swayed.

“I like the idea of ​​making connections that aren’t political and seeing each other as people,” Holland said.

“We live in a time that is very divided and pointed and partisan,” he said. “So it’s a way to maybe not take ourselves so seriously and remind ourselves that despite our differences, we have a lot more in common than we don’t and to lessen resentment a little bit. So based on that, definitely.”

This report from The Canadian Press was first published on July 2, 2023.