| It’s been another banner year in the world of sneakers. Here are all the latest kicks you should have on your radar. —Yang-Yi Goh, style editor |
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The Best Sneakers of 2024 (So Far) |
We’re a little ways past the year’s midway point, which means it’s high time we took stock of the best sneakers of 2024. And so far, at least, it feels like there’s been something of a sea change in the finicky world of kicks. A handful of sneaker-collecting standbys—the transparent bids for virality, the run-of-the-mill retro releases, the perennial hypebeast faves—simply haven’t been hitting quite as hard as they used to. Instead, what’s really resonating now are sneakers with an original vision and an emphasis on premium materials and clean design.
High-fashion collaborations remain hotter than ever, with some of the world’s most vaunted design houses linking up with sneaker brands to reimagine classic models. New shapes and silhouettes have made a strong impression, with state-of-the-art materials working their way into shoes like never before. In short, some aspects of sneaker culture as we’ve known it are beginning to fade out—and they’re quickly being replaced with new, extremely exciting alternatives.
Sneakers are dead. Long live sneakers. These are the best sneakers of 2024 so far. —Calum Marsh
Bode x Nike Astro Grabber
For Bode’s first-ever Nike collaboration, Emily Adams Bode Aujla savvily dug deep into the Swoosh’s archives to uncover the Astro Grabber, a long-forgotten football shoe from the 1970s. The sneaker has, in the months since this much-hyped limited release, found itself elevated back to legend status. It is, without question, the shoe of the season—to the point that you might already be sick of it popping up on your IG feed. More than a hype-fueled flash in the pan, the Bode x Nike Astro Grabber is a true classic in the making, doing for the silhouette what Wales Bonner did for the Samba a few years back.
JJJJound x Adidas Samba
Speaking of Wales Bonner’s Sambas: the British label’s beloved partnership with Adidas is still going strong. But if we had to choose the single best iteration on the Samba this year, that title would have to go to the deceptively luxe spin from JJJJound. Rather than dress the iconic soccer shoe up with any new bells and whistles, the Montreal design studio decided to simply master the basics. They rendered the Samba in three classic colorways—the OG white and black makeups, alongside a new hairy tan suede—and then had them fashioned from the finest of premium leathers by artisans in Adidas’s native Germany. The result feels like the definitive version of an all-time great sneaker.
New Balance 1906L
From the moment it debuted at Paris Fashion Week in January—on the runway of the revered Junya Watanabe, no less—New Balance’s sneaker-loafer hybrids generated a maelstrom of discourse and memes. It would’ve been easy to imagine the silhouette wearing out its welcome before it even arrived (it’s scheduled to release sometime later this fall). But in the end, this is simply a good shoe—comfy, versatile, and far less bizarre than its reputation might suggest—one that we’re anticipating so heavily that it demanded a place on this list well in advance of its official launch.
Click here to read the rest of the list.
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