They had been as soon as worn by athletes to win Olympic observe races in the Seventies. Now, slim, low-profile sneakers are extra typically seen on the type set than in the context of 5,000-meter sprints.
Harry Styles has a number of pairs of the oft-sold out Dries Van Noten’s panelled leather-based and suede sneakers ($495), whereas Hailey Bieber, Kaia Gerber and Addison Rae are repeatedly seen out and about of their vividly-colored Onitsuka Tiger types (starting from $155 to $215). Dua Lipa, a worldwide model ambassador for Puma, has the extra wallet-friendly compact Speed Cat silhouette in purple, black, pink and even a silver ballerina model ($100).
In June, Prada put ahead its personal providing with the new Montecarlo sneaker ($1,100) — a re-edition of a design from Spring-Summer 2005. Bottega Veneta describes its Orbit Flash shoe ($990) as “a low-top lace-up ballet sneaker” with “supple suede with lightweight nylon”, whereas Miu Miu boasts that its Plume ($950) type is “sleek and extremely light” — although they do supply a model the place this aerodynamic design is weighed down with shoelace charms and miniature keyrings.
“It’s more simple, it’s less flashy,” stated David Fischer, founder and CEO of youth tradition platform Highsnobiety, in a telephone interview, observing the present footwear aesthetic. Global retail analytics firm Edited’s analyst and footwear professional Katharine Carter agreed, telling NCS that slimline running-inspired trainers have emerged as 2025’s largest sneaker development.
Even mass-market manufacturers similar to H&M and Zara are now getting in on the motion: Carter famous an uptick of 367% extra slim-soled types flooding the cabinets for the Spring-Summer 2025 season in comparison with 2024. By distinction, Edited estimates new designs of chunky and platform sneakers have decreased 37% year-on-year.
The present desire for slim-fit, low-profile footwear marks a shift away from the chunky “ugly” shoe development that has dominated the runways — and particular person closets — for nearly a decade.
The Balenciaga Triple S, created by the mononymic designer Demna throughout his tenure at the model, disrupted the sneaker panorama in the mid-to-late 2010s. Its vertiginous, stacked sole was immediately recognizable, and a brand new period of chunky sneakers with mainstream attraction, similar to Zara’s Multi-Piece sneaker, the New Balance 09060 and the Adidas Yeezy 500 “Blush”, quickly adopted. However, round 2023, their recognition started to wane (that 12 months, the Triple S was booted off the prime spot of GQ’s annual Best Sneakers checklist and changed by the re-issued Adidas Samba from 1972 — a soccer coaching shoe, with its earliest iteration courting again to 1949).
“I always like to say that fashion is like physics; for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction,” stated Emma McClendon, assistant professor of style research at St John’s University in New York, in a telephone name. Noting the pendulum swing of developments, she defined: “Fashion is predicated on a desire for newness.”
But there was a collective shrinking of silhouettes and types of garments extra usually, too. From the controversial return of skinny jeans to the uptick in hotpants and boob tubes, “stuff is getting slimmer,” stated McClendon. “Fashion doesn’t happen in a vacuum,” she added. “It’s possibly one of the most visceral ways that we bodily engage with culture.”
Many have been fast to attract a connective throughline between the revival of developments like skinny denims and bandage gown with the growing accessibility of Ozempic and different GLP-1 injectables. “We have to address the fact that what we’re seeing is a return to the thin ideal in a really scary way,” stated McClendon. “In general, it’s that you want to be smaller, you want to be demure, you want to be all of these things associated with being ladylike,” McClendon added.
Could that shift be making its solution to our footwear selections? In addition to the rise of slimline sneakers, there has additionally been rising curiosity in “Sneakerinas,” a hybrid shoe that mixes a conventional sneaker with the extra girlish ballet flat. Often, they are little greater than wispy slips of satin or suede. Sometimes they’ve ribbons in lieu of laces — very like the model bought by Chinese footwear model Vivaia, which has change into a veritable off-duty mannequin staple because of endorsements from Bella Hadid and Amelia Gray. EDITED reported a 112% enhance in the quantity of sneakers described as “ballerina” or “Mary Jane” in the previous 12 months.
Today, sneakers are not solely getting slimmer, some are barely there in any respect. The mesh Alaia ballet flats — style search engine Lyst’s hottest product at the end of 2024 — are virtually see-through, a lot to some fashionistas’ delight and others’ chagrin. Even Balenciaga is taking word: its most head-turning sneaker launch since the Triple S is the Zero shoe. Available in beige and black, the barely-there footwear is molded from a footprint, with the wearer’s toes secured solely at the toe and heel. If we are in the period of the bare gown, perhaps subsequent is the bare shoe.
“I think in many ways, the shoe world is very much marching in one direction here,” stated Fischer.