What women actually want from the sneaker industry

When it comes to sneaker culture and sneakers in general, we often tend to forget about a small but important detail: the female audience. 

Known for being a predominantly male world, from the top of the main brands to the sizing that is anything but inclusive, the sneaker world has often made the mistake of not taking into account and giving the right importance to women, attentive consumers and enthusiasts who can't find their taste and needs to be reflected in the products offered by the brands. 

Anyone who designs women's shoes thinks that, according to a common-known belief, women should like platform, pink, etc...
Gilda Ambrosio 

Decades of pink women's releases, poor quality materials and sketchy shapes have somehow left women in the corner, undermining the contribution that the female community could have given to the development of sneaker culture. 
However, it seems that over the last few years things are slowly changing. Collaborations such as Rihanna's with PUMA and more recently that of Aleali May and Melody Ehsani with Jordan have brought female creativity to the fore, demonstrating not only how many women are actually passionate about this world, but also how many others were waiting for such collaborations to be finally released.

However, this doesn't seem to be enough. While there are increasingly more collaborations with female artists and W only releases - like the recent Jordan IV Off-White - what women really want is to simply be able to wear the same sneakers that are designed for men, as it turned out also in the interviews released by various fans in the StockX In Her Sneakers column. It simply no longer makes sense to distinguish between men's and women's sneakers, both in shoe design and in size. The female audience wants to finally feel part of the sneaker community, with the wish of wearing any type of shoe they want and the freedom to feel themselves. An act of empowerment that starts with sneakers. 

This topic, along with what sneakers represent for women, their connection with music, fashion and also with the city of Milan, was the focus of the third episode of The SneakerPod, nss magazine's podcast produced in collaboration with StockX, with two special guests, Roshelle and Gilda Ambrosio.