Lock the doors, lower the blinds, and fire up the smoke machine because Harry Styles has hung up his scuffed white Adidas Sambas for good. Or if not for good, then for a day at least. The musician and actor was spotted taking a jaunt around Mayfair in little shorts and shades–as he often tends to–with a pair of dainty white suede Dries Van Noten sneakers. I’ve never wanted to throw $475 at some tennies so fast.
At a time when trainers are getting slimmer, Styles’s Dries Van Noten pair are like the final boss of slimmed-down silhouettes. They’re not dissimilar to the recent Louis Vuitton drop, the LV sneakerina, a mega-slim, light-footed trainer that also comes in white; Or Miu Miu’s little Plume suede sneakers; Or even Adidas’s Tokyo trainers. In essence, we’re experiencing a subtle shift away from the gummy-soled Samba and into even sleeker territory. Even Styles—who tends to go for boyish, regular guy ’fits when he’s not promoting an album–is aboard the nimble footwear trend. He looks like he’s about to enter the boxing ring, or break out the most perfect pirouette.
We first reported the move towards slimline trainers towards the end of last year. Lily Allen, a sneakerhead if ever we saw one, swears by Miu Miu’s viral New Balance runners in black and also white. “They’re slimline and nimble, which feels very now,” she wrote for British Vogue. “They look delicate next to the JD Sports treasures that I recently pulled out of my storage unit.” Other proponents of the barely-there trainer include Emily Ratajkowski, who’s always stepping out in a variety of Puma Speedcats and Kaia Gerber, who loves a pair of Bode X Nike Astro Grabbers.
But, I don’t know–all of the above are nice, but Harry Styles’s Dries Van Notens are really speaking to me. Did he just crown the breakout trainer of the summer? If anyone can swing the dial, it’s him.
