Stay Light On Your Feet

Formal lace-ups and brogues now feature more casual soles to ease you through your working day and long into the evening.

Our sartorial decisions have begun to embrace spring’s lighter touch, with weightless fabrics, unstructured tailoring and a paler colour palette de rigueur. So it seems foolish that we should still be facing the commute weighed down by heavy brogues.

This season, the trend towards comfort-conscious footwear has inspired a range of smart Oxford lace-ups and brogues that look as sturdy as their winter counterparts but are significantly lighter on the feet. Traditional brands such as Trickers and fashion-forward labels such as Oliver Spencer (which has just opened its debut shoe store) have embraced the new foam-sole technology and experimented with colour.

Meanwhile, Prada, who set the ball rolling, has already moved on to break more new ground with its smart lace-ups featuring rope soles normally reserved for deckside espadrilles.

Left to right: Bottle green suede brogues with red sole £219 by OLIVER SPENCER; 020-7269 6444; Black leather lace-ups with red sole £135 by HUDSON; 020-7729 2113; Tan leather lace-ups with white sole £70 by DUNE; 020-7258 3605; Tan leather brogues with green sole £310 by TRICKERS; asos.com; Chocolate leather lace-ups with rope sole £395 by PRADA; 020-7647 5000

(Images: Sam Armstrong)