Don’t be surprised if you find yourself digging through your dad’s closet to keep up with the latest trends this season. According to our fashion experts, old-school sneakers, also known as “dad shoes” are making a comeback.

They may look bulky, plain, and overly-simple, but there’s a good chance that they’ll be coming to a runway near you as part of the reinvention of sportswear. Recently, the retro sports brand Fila took their spring/summer 2019 collection (“dad shoes” and all) to Milan Fashion Week. Whether you’re all about that retro look, or can’t bear to look at them, “dad shoes” are here to stay. Here are the reasons why.

Back in the ’90s, it was all about high-waisted ripped jeans, unitards, catsuits, cycling shorts, and dad trainers. According to Emily Gordon-Smith, a fashion trend forecaster for Stylus, “It’s one that we’re forecasting going forward for at least the next couple of years, and the ’90s and early noughties have become a real focus. This whole sort of dad trainer thing is very much a part of it.”

With their absurd chunkiness, mismatched color schemes, and overall unattractiveness, “dad shoes” are a perfect fit for the current evolving trend called “ugly fashion.” “It sounds slightly bizarre, but it’s true to say that things that are ugly have really become quite cool and chic,” explains Emily.

West Yorkshire broadcast and production coordinator April Winters has been keen on the trend since it first emerged. “Dad trainers are definitely ugly and I love it,” Winters explains. “I like them, for the look.”

Sportswear, athleisure, and streetwear have found a new home on the runway in recent years. According to Emily, your sweatpants are no longer restricted to the living room couch. “The whole sportswear thing is such a massive phenomenon,” she explains. “There’s no real sign of that going away. It’s effectively how everybody wants to dress now and it’s got a lot to do with comfort rather than actually being active.”

It’s always good to have a comeback up your sleeve. You might get into a disagreement, an altercation, or just a friendly debate with your friends. Regardless, there’s nothing wrong with being armed in advance with some sick lines. However, these burns don’t rely on swearing to insult their victims. You can bring people to their knees with a bit of mockery and a touch of wit. Of course, we recommend being kind and compassionate, but everyone needs a comeback once in a while.

This simple comeback is great because it sounds like it’s going to be a compliment and then swerves into an insult. Furthermore, you can say this comeback with a calm and controlled demeanor, and your victim might not even realize they’ve been insulted.

Alternatively, add some emphasis to “less,” and you’ve got yourself a sassy and cutting burn. This comeback is ideal for polite scenarios where you can’t scream and shout at somebody. No drama — just the cold, hard, truth.

This comeback reminds us of something our grandparents would say, but in a good way. Elderly people have a great reservoir of old and strange sayings that are usually designed to dismiss someone else. “They aren’t the sharpest tool in the shed.” “She’s dumb as a box of rocks.” “He couldn’t organize a bun fight in a bakery.”

These clean comebacks aren’t crude or vulgar, and they aren’t controversial or shocking. However, they are very satisfying and rather amusing.

This clean comeback starts out sounding like a compliment, but makes clear it’s an insult by the end. Admittedly, starting off by saying, “You’re not the dumbest person alive” does sound an awful lot like there’s a “but” coming.

The second half of this comeback is great because it makes the recipient of the insult the second dumbest person alive. Somehow, that’s an even worse insult than being number one. Who wants to be runner-up for that title?

This is another comeback that sounds like something someone’s grandparent would say. And for that reason, we love it. This is one of those sly burns that sounds fairly inoffensive, but is actually calling someone incredibly stupid.

To spell it out, this comeback says that the person in question is so stupid that they couldn’t empty water out of a boot — an easy task in itself — even if the instructions were on the base of the boot. Get it?

To continue with the trend of old fashioned burns, let’s turn to this pun-tastic one from somebody’s mom. We begin by comparing teeth to the summer, which is a pretty strange comparison. As it turns out, we’re just doing it so we can mock the crooked placement of a wonky grill.

Rather than saying “some are,” this clean comeback uses “summer” instead. This is a handy burn for anybody that missed out on braces or hasn’t got them yet.

In season four, episode seven of animated sitcom Bob’s Burgers, mom Linda invites over a bunch of kids to have a sleepover with daughter Louise. However, Louise is not interested in being friends with any of them, and has a hilarious list of insults for each person.

When talking about “bland” Jessica, Louise declares that she’d be flour if she was a spice. It’s an instantly iconic line that’s been taken up by people who haven’t even seen the show.

On The Real Housewives of Atlanta, some of the women refer to each other’s comments as “nasty nice.” A comment might sound like it’s friendly, and may be framed like a compliment, but it comes along with a little sting.

This clean comeback is the perfect example of nasty nice, and we can hear it being drawled in a polite Southern accent. Top tip — putting “oh honey” or “oh darling” at the start of an insult is a surefire way to get the upper hand.

We’re big fans of this science-themed comeback for a number of reasons. Firstly, it’s somewhat impressive to use basic biology to insult somebody else. It’s a small flex, but a flex nonetheless.

Secondly, calling somebody a plant as an insult is unexpected and hysterical. Saying that someone is a simple organism is simply a good burn, especially if you’re comparing them to something that lives in a pot. All in all, we give this clean comeback full marks.

Of course, there are several great clean comebacks from the world of celebrity, and why not include those too? Here we have a quick and witty response from celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey’s daughter, who is asked what it’s like to have the world’s most famous chef as a dad.

Hilariously, little miss Ramsey says she wouldn’t know because her dad isn’t popular chef Jamie Oliver. We bet the foul-mouthed chef just loved that.

And while we’re here, let’s take a look at a classic exchange from 1942 war drama Casablanca. The movie features old Hollywood stars Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart, and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

The movie wasn’t expected to do so well but is now considered one of the greatest films of all time. This exchange between Ugarte and Rick is a great example of a clean comeback.

For people that eat bacon, bacon is the best thing ever. And if we’re being honest, we don’t mind burnt bacon. We might even like it. We’re not talking about completely ruined black husks of bacon, but we enjoy a strip that’s been sizzled a few seconds too long.

Anyway, this comeback works with other food items, too. Like, “You’re the kind of person who should only ever get dry bread.” Or, “You’re the kind of person who deserves sour milk.” See?

Amusingly, this clean comeback comes from a mom speaking to her five-year-old daughter. This comeback might sound a little harsh, but clearly, the daughter has remembered it all these years later. And maybe she now knows that it’s also a little harsh to ask someone why they wear makeup when they’re in their 40s.

This comeback works particularly well for members of the same family who might already look a little alike. However, we don’t recommend using it on children.

For this clean comeback, we turn to William Shakespeare himself, in Roman tragedy Coriolanus. Basically, by stating that someone’s face would turn grapes sour, one of history’s most celebrated writers is actually saying, “You ugly!”

In the play, the insults continue — “When he walks, he moves like a war machine, and the ground sinks beneath his feet. He’s able to pierce armor with his eye, he talks like a death knell, and his voice itself is an assault.”

For some people, communication doesn’t involve more than one person. We understand that’s against the very definition of communication, but it’s just the way some people are. These people like to communicate their own opinions and needs, but don’t stop to hear anybody else’s experience or perspective. It’s very frustrating, and makes you feel powerless.

In that way, these people are like alarm clocks — unrelenting, loud, and infuriating. And also, you want to whack them on the head so they’ll shut up.

In 1997, author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. wrote a semi-autobiographical novel named Timequake. The book contains this excellent clean comeback that creatively calls someone small-brained. And really, what’s better than that?

There are actually a range of comebacks that derive from this literary example. One Redditor suggested, “If brains were explosive, yours would be a dud,” and another, “If brains were dynamite, you wouldn’t have enough to blow your nose.” Put your own creative spin on it!

A double negative is when you say two negative things in one sentence. It’s like saying, “I don’t don’t like you,” which really means that you do like someone. One of the negatives cancels out the other, leaving a positive.

That’s what’s happened here with the words “impossible” and “underestimate.” It sounds like the person is going to say, “You are impossible to like,” or something similar, but instead they use “underestimate,” making the person feel even worse.

Here’s another literary comeback, this time from American author and essayist Edward Abbey. The writer’s 1975 book The Monkey Wrench Gang is about four wilderness defenders who come together to protect the wild. This line shows somebody’s opinion of working together as a group, and it’s one lots of us can relate to.

Abbey is completely correct to point out that a group of people can come up with some spectacularly dumb decisions, compared to one person working alone.

Have you ever heard of the Peter principle? It’s the idea that someone will be promoted to their level of incompetence. In other words, if you’re good at your job, you tend to get promoted until you’re in a job that you can’t really do properly. That’s the theory anyway.

This comeback riffs on the Peter principle but uses education instead of employment. This comeback is basically saying that someone has had more schooling than their brain can handle. Burn!

Here’s another celebrity clean comeback, this time courtesy of 30 Rock creator and Saturday Night Live alumni Tina Fey. The writer and actress was being interviewed by David Letterman on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, and was teaching the veteran host how to improvise.

Letterman tried his best to improvise, but the Mean Girls creator ended up besting him. When it comes to quick comebacks, Tina Fey is a master. Though we must admit, they aren’t always clean.

When there’s a really witty person in a group, it can be hilarious, but it can also be intimidating. Not everyone has a fast mind and a sharp tongue, and some people prefer to have their confrontations behind closed doors, rather than out in the open for all to see.

Fans of The Real Housewives of New York have seen what happens when an extremely witty person (say, Bethenny Frankel) is placed in a group of…unarmed ladies (ahem, Ramona Singer). It’s carnage.

We have filmmaker Billy Wilder to thank for this hilarious clean comeback. Famously, celebrated painter Vincent Van Gogh cut off the lower part of his ear while he was suffering from a dark depression. So, to have “Van Gogh’s ear for music” means to be tone-deaf, unable to sing, and without rhythm. It’s a pretty cutting thing to say (excuse the pun).

Apparently, Billy Wilder made this comment while listening to an actor sing during the production of the 1964 movie, Kiss Me Stupid.

Have you ever dealt with somebody that you vastly overestimated? Perhaps you noticed them do something strange, but you gave them the benefit of the doubt. Why wouldn’t you?

Maybe other people have given you subtle warnings about this person, but you’ve swept them aside in the hopes that everything will be alright. They can’t be that bad, right? Well, sometimes we all overestimate people’s abilities, and this comeback is the perfect way to express that.

This is a nice simple burn that mocks someone’s family without getting too personal. Generally, people’s family trees are in a tree shape, with parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents above your name, and branches of siblings, cousins, uncles, and aunts around you.

By saying that someone’s family tree looks like a circle, you’re saying that their family is related to each other. And we mean related to each other in a different way than through marriage. We mean related, related.

For our next clean comeback, we turn to Mad Men, one of the most acclaimed TV shows of all time. The show explores the advertising industry in the 1960s, and follows ad man Don Draper as he navigates his various relationships. In this exchange, a frustrated junior copywriter tells Draper that he pities him.

Draper’s response is utter perfection, as he casually claims that he doesn’t think about Ginsberg at all. As we know, the opposite of love isn’t hate — it’s apathy.

Generally, when you enter a competition, there are winners declared. There might be first place, second place, and third. Or there might be a runner-up. In other contexts, everyone that has participated in the event or competition will get a participation award.

It’s a thank-you for being involved, but some people see them as meaningless since they don’t reward any success. This clean comeback refers to someone as a participation award, which is just like calling somebody pointless.

The story behind this creative comeback is that colleagues were doing the knot test in work. We assume the knot test involves climbing up a rope with knots, though we suppose it could be some sort of complicated challenge where people have to either tie or untie knots.

Regardless, someone wasn’t doing so well on the knot test, so their boss hit them with an unusual burn. He said his employee looked like an octopus in a ceiling fan. Enough said.

In 1934, actress Mae West starred in her fourth motion picture, Belle of the Nineties. In the movie, West’s character passes judgment on a man, and says that his mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.

We absolutely love this clean comeback, partly because it plays on the idea that storks bring babies to their mothers. The idea that a mom would keep the stork and dispose of the baby is ridiculous. That’s what makes this a great line.

This is another nice and simple clean comeback that compares somebody unfavorably to something else. If we’re going to get all grammatical, this comeback is a classic simile, where one thing is compared with another in order to achieve an effect.

In this case, the effect is that somebody appears to be incredibly dim-witted. We all know that caves are dark, so saying that someone is “as bright as a cave” is a clear insult to their intelligence.

Getting into a back and forth with somebody can be very frustrating. They might be unreasonable, they could be shouting over you, or maybe they’re saying completely ridiculous and untrue things. Oftentimes, people resolve these sorts of issues by “agreeing to disagree.”

Everyone continues to think that they’re right, and that their opponent continues to be wrong. This comeback takes another approach, telling the opponent that if you agreed with them, you’d both be wrong. Show us the lie.

This is another clean comeback from a movie, this time from Adam Sandler’s 1995 movie Billy Madison. In the film, Sandler plays a rich, entitled kid who got through school because of his wealthy father’s influence and bribes. Sandler must return to school and pass every grade, leading to all sorts of comedy hijinks.

This amazing burn is delivered to Sandler’s character from the school principal. He closes with the always dramatic “May God have mercy on your soul.”

Sometimes, in order to deliver a truly effective comeback, you just have to state the truth. Yes, you could rant and rave and scream and insult. You could produce witty lines and sarcastic quips. You could even get personal.

But, it can be even more effective to just look someone in the eye and call them out. In this story, a kid was getting picked on when she simply said, “I’m sorry you are so sad.” It must have touched a nerve.

Here’s another comeback that’s simple yet effective. It’s only five words long, and you can always claim that you were actually being genuine. Of course, telling someone that they’re easy to draw is like saying that they look simple.

It also means that they might start panicking about what exactly you’re talking about. Do they have a weird face? Are they strange to look at? By saying this simple sentence, you can create a whirlwind of paranoia for somebody. Use with caution.

A bunch of comebacks on this list rely on sounding like reasonable sentences or statements. In reality, they’re snarky and back-handed, but it’s nice to be able to say something that doesn’t instantly sound like an attack. The best comebacks can be delivered completely calmly, so that you don’t come across like a raving bully.

This comeback sounds like the start of an apology. It sounds like it will end with, “then I truly apologize.” Of course, it goes in a different direction.

We’ve already seen one comeback where somebody compares their opponent to a potted plant. We loved this comeback as it drew on some scientific knowledge, and insulted somebody by comparing them with a simple organism. Hilarious.

For this example, we have something similar. There’s also scientific knowledge at play, this time about the fact that humans breathe in oxygen. This comeback is calling those breaths a waste, and saying that a plant could replace them. It’s smart, and it’s cutting.

Julius Henry Marx — known as Groucho — was a comedian, actor, and writer born in 1890. Marx performed with his siblings as part of The Marx Brothers, and had a distinctive appearance. With his glasses, thick mustache, and large eyebrows, Marx was the inspiration for the novelty disguise that people buy and wear all over the world.

Groucho Marx was known for his quick wit, and has all sorts of quips attributed to him. This one is particularly famous, and we can see why.

This clean comeback is an extension of what many people say when they’re in the middle of an argument. A parent might say to their teenage child, “I expected better from you!” A frustrated girlfriend might yell it at their selfish boyfriend, “I expected better!” It’s a judgment, and it’s saying that you’re disappointed in someone’s behavior.

This comeback immediately takes it back by saying, “No, that’s a lie.” It goes on to claim that it’s obvious that this person will always be disappointing. Savage.

This is an old-fashioned insult that came about when radio was still a hugely prominent medium. Saying that somebody has “a face for radio” is saying that they’re too ugly to appear on TV or in movies.

Since radio is an audio medium, it doesn’t matter what the people that work there look like. It’s the destination for ugly folk. Used in other contexts, this is just a creative way of saying that somebody isn’t much of a looker.

Earlier in this list, we referenced Louise Belcher — the youngest sibling in the animated sitcom, Bob’s Burgers. In an episode where her mother invites over some kids for a sleepover, Louise goes to great lengths to avoid and insult her guests.

After she unfavorably compares school pal Jessica with a bag of flour, Louise goes on to deliver this incredible line. From the perspective of a child, we’re to assume that two books are even worse than one book. Gross!

Actress Elizabeth Taylor was married eight times to seven men during her lifetime (she married actor Richard Burton twice). The iconic Hollywood star acted opposite the best leading men of her day — including Paul Newman, Rock Hudson, and James Dean. However, in an interview with The Times in 1981, the actress made this hilarious statement.

Indeed, Taylor starred with a dog in 1943’s Lassie Come Home, and with a horse in 1944’s National Velvet. We don’t blame her for preferring her four-legged costars.

This clean comeback is a double whammy, insulting someone’s appearance as well as their intelligence. In doing so, it also casts doubt on that person’s future, potentially sending them into a spiral of doubt about where their life is going.

This insult claims that someone’s grades are so bad that they should just marry a rich partner instead. It then remarks that the person isn’t attractive enough and so, should study harder. As with all of our comebacks, proceed with caution!

This cheeky clean comeback uses a common idiom — “laughter is the best medicine” — and turns it around so that it’s actually an insult. Of course, what this comeback is actually saying is that someone has such a funny looking face that it would produce enough laughter to cure the entire world.

Again, this is basically a creative way of saying, “You’re ugly,” without resorting to such brutish behavior. Hey, at least insulting someone this way shows that you’re creative.

Our next clean comeback comes from webcomic XKCD. The comic is described as being about “romance, sarcasm, math, and language,” and its name was chosen so that it couldn’t be pronounced.

In the comic where this comeback originates, a woman is sitting in a café when a man approaches her. He attempts to insult her in order to get her attention, and she responds with this paragraph of doom. Thankfully, it works, and the man goes home to think about his life.

We’ve already had one comeback on this list that takes aim at someone’s teeth. Here’s another one, this time comparing teeth with stars. This insult might sound like a compliment at first, and that’s partly why it works so well. After all, comparing someone with the stars is usually flattering — they’re twinkly, they’re romantic, they’re mysterious.

Unfortunately, in this case, teeth and stars are only alike because they’re both “yellow and far apart.” If our sister told us this, we certainly wouldn’t be happy.

This hilarious comeback is usually attributed to author Mark Twain, but other sources claim that it was initially said by politician Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar way back in 1887. Regardless, the line refers to the tradition of sending well-wishing letters or telegrams to people’s weddings, which were then read out at the event.

This line jokes that someone did the same thing for a person’s funeral, thus suggesting that they’re happy that the person passed away. It’s an old-fashioned joke, but it works nonetheless.

Finally, we end with a clean comeback that might sound a little simplistic, but that’s actually completely savage. This person’s brother came back at someone in an argument by calling them a “non-essential vitamin.” Admittedly, this isn’t a traditional insult, but that doesn’t stop it from being hysterical.

Just like comparing someone with a potted plant, saying that somebody is a non-essential vitamin is calling them simple to the point of being worthless. Yet again, we appreciate a mildly scientific burn.