Remember the notably hilarious scene in Crazy Stupid Love where the resident heartthrob and sartorially revered Ryan Gosling takes middle-aged Steve Carell shopping to give him a style makeover? The famous line from Gosling is, “are you Steve Jobs?” where he then proceeds to throw Carell’s New Balance 407 dad sneakers over the shopping mall balcony alluding to their fashion death. Gosling then ends with—“Well, in that case, you have no right to wear New Balance sneakers, ever.”

In 2011, that scene had me almost rolling on the floor. Fast forward to 2020, the joke is on us (and Gosling) because the ‘dad sneaker’ (particularly anything New Balance) has made a modern comeback and shows no sign of fading into mid-life crisis oblivion.

Following the unexpected return of the dad sneaker trend that took full flight in 2019, fashion influencers and enthusiasts brought back ‘90s style kicks as the next trend. This fashion gateway opened by trendsetters and celebrities spawned a new normcore style and gave it a contemporary update. Enter ‘corporate normcore’.

The best part of this trend? Forget just pairing it with trending activewear, polish off a casual day outfit or tame it with a dressy suit. The world is your nostalgic oyster.

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A post shared by AMAKA (@amaka.hamelijnck) on Jun 20, 2020 at 11:49am PDT

 

To make things easy we’d collected some fashion inspiration from our favourite Insta-fashionistas on how to style your ‘90s kicks. You’ll be on your way to dad-chic relevance faster than you can say ‘Seinfeld’.

 

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A post shared by Kickstart_NYC (@kickstart_nyc) on Oct 29, 2016 at 11:03am PDT

 

New Balance

 

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A post shared by Felicia Akerstrom (@fakerstrom) on May 20, 2020 at 8:51am PDT

 

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A post shared by LINH NILLER (@linhniller) on Oct 29, 2019 at 7:01am PDT

 

Nike

 

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A post shared by Bella 🦋 (@bellahadid) on Dec 2, 2019 at 9:24am PST

 

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A post shared by Rozalia 💥 (@rozalia_russian) on Jun 21, 2020 at 11:16pm PDT

Adidas

 

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A post shared by Mary (@maryljean) on Mar 7, 2020 at 12:48am PST

 

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A post shared by LINH NILLER (@linhniller) on Feb 11, 2020 at 9:19am PST

 

Converse

 

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A post shared by Rocío Crusset (@rociocrusset) on Nov 25, 2019 at 5:00am PST

 

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A post shared by Official IG Converse ANZ (@converse_anz) on Mar 12, 2020 at 10:56pm PDT

Reebok

 

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A post shared by Reebok Classic (@reebokclassics) on Mar 13, 2020 at 10:40am PDT

 

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A post shared by Reebok Classic (@reebokclassics) on Aug 8, 2019 at 7:14am PDT

 

Shop a few of our favourite 90s dad-sneakers below