It's Not Actually a Boots Only Summer, Is It?
As with any TikTok-fueled, hashtag-wielding microtrend, I took #bootsonlysummer with a pinch of salt.
In the lead-up to summer 2025, the "boots-only summer" hashtag began promoting the practice of wearing studded football boots (also known as "cleats" by those who call the sport soccer) as everyday footwear. We’re talking baggy jorts with adidas F50s, miniskirts with Predators, and jeans with Nike Mercurials.
It’s all pretty funny stuff, seeing groups of (mostly) lads wearing football boots with their regular, casual attire.
But it’s nothing more than that: A semi-ironic styling cue masked as a fashion trend. I didn’t expect anyone would actually take it seriously. Until they did.
Spanish singer Rosalía came first, wearing New Balance 442 PRO FG V2 boots en route to a fitting for the 2025 Met Gala. The boots were only just perceptible under the volume of her billowing white skirt but they were the strongest proponent of #bootsonlysummer in the real, stylish world.
We were no longer talking about kids tossing on a look for the 'Gram but an A-lister earnestly wearing football boots on the streets of New York. I was baffled.
If you’ve ever worn football boots on any ground except for the soft grass they’re made for, you’ll know it’s a pain. The studs are awkward to walk on and they make an annoying clanking noise, especially on metal.
Why Rosalía (or anyone else, for that matter) would opt to wear a pair of studded boots on hard asphalt is beyond me.
Football boots aren’t made to be worn on hard ground. Well, except for one upcoming pair from adidas.
The adidas F50 Adiframe is a pair of hi-tech football boots, all pink with a foldover tongue, encased in a see-through outer shell so they’re wearable on the street. Samples have emerged online and the shoe is rumored to be released in Spring 2026.
Last year, in response to a growing trend for football boots being customized with heeled Vibram soles and turf boots becoming casual sneakers, I proclaimed that fashion’s football boot obsession is getting weird. Now, it's become even weirder.
In the wake of the adidas Samba, a long-retired footballing relic, becoming the hottest thing in footwear or Nike reintroducing T90 turf boots as sneakers that leach onto early-2000s nostalgia, things are being taken one step further.
Why buy a pair of redesigned football boots made to be fashionable when you can wear the real thing?
