For the last several years, the phrase “designer sneakers” has primarily made me think of Kendall Roy, Succession's totemic failson and resident hypebeast who made wearing flashy, ultra-expensive kicks seem so uncool that his doing so actually repelled people from conducting business with him. Kendall’s predilection for overthought, superfluously techy footwear reflected the luxury industry’s streetwear output for much of the last decade, as brands pumped out tacky (and overpriced) approximations of mass-produced silhouettes. His sneakers were also bulky, a trickledown of the hottest high-fashion silhouettes being literally humongous—big, hulking, post-irony trainers, like Balenciaga’s cartoonish Triple S, that spoofed the historically dorky sneakers favored by the geriatric.
It’s funny, then, that Succession—a show about how the uberrich have terrible taste—also introduced the masses to “quiet luxury,” a movement that stopped the chunky dad-shoe trend in its Godzilla-sized tracks. In turn, stylish people started reaching for shoes that were sleeker, retro-leaning, and far more affordable; Adidas’s soccer lineup of Sambas, Gazelles, and Spezials, beloved by Hollywood hotshots like Paul Mescal and Austin Butler, became the egalitarian ideal. Dad shoes began to seem played out (a move that Balenciaga’s outgoing creative director Demna parodied with his comical 10XLs), and it felt like it had been years since anyone cool wanted to shell out for an expensive sneaker.
In March, the New York Times covered the market’s pivot to “sleeker peekaboo styles,” as seen on both sidewalks and runways. “There was a shift, I think it was in the fall of 2023, where you saw a lot more Sambas on the street, with that slick sole,” Federico Barassi, the vice president of menswear at SSENSE, told the Times. “People started to have some fatigue with those big bubble-y, older sneakers.”
But now, pricey designer sneakers are looking less Kendall Roy and more, well, JFK Jr.—and they’re suddenly hotter than ever before. “Torpedo sneakers,” as GQ dubbed them in January, are the purring antithesis of the Triple S. With a spiritual assist from the influential Bode x Nike Astro Grabber that debuted last year, we’ve seen a wave of lithe, sporty kicks made of slim suede and low-profile nylon, whose low-profile silhouettes evoke the look of mid-century track and field shoes.
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