You know how all modern buildings are made from shiny, space-age materials? Today’s rough-road shoes are, too. But whereas new skyscrapers end up looking the same, this fall’s new runners all look uniquely… good.
They come in varying flavors of functionality. The Salomon XT-Whisper Void colorway co-designed by British singer Ama epitomizes trail-gone-lifestyle with clean lines and a cleaner color scheme. The human touch is knowingly less evident in Satisfy’s TheROCKER, if only because of how many hands were involved in making it. And at the pinnacle of stylish performance, you’ll find District Vision’s spin on New Balance’s FuelCell Super Comp Elite v5, a tasteful revisioning of a powerhouse silhouette.
The truth is, these kinds of muscular running shoes were always cool; it just took time (and some slick colorways) for the broader culture to arrive at the obvious truth. As such, these new models don’t represent the death knell of the granola-fied trail sneaker. Rather, they’re indicative of the smart, suave, still-sturdy outdoorsy shoes yet to come.
SATISFY TheROCKER
Satisfy’s debut in-house shoe took two years and a brand-new hire to finalize, not least because Satisfy aimed to create the platonic ideal of a trail shoe right out of the gate. Overseen by the brand’s just-situated head of footwear, hockey star turned outdoor shoe veteran Jean-Marc Djian, TheROCKER’s design is intricate by necessity. Normally, only the biggest footwear brands have the resources to lab out cutting-edge textiles. But Satisfy took the long way to perfection, ideating a bespoke mesh upper and a proprietary foam midsole for a shoe that obscures all that sweat with a slick facade.
SALOMON XT-WHISPER VOID AMA
Most athletes don’t get a signature shoe until they’ve proven their mettle with a storied career. English singer Ama snagged her own Salomon shoe at 27, with only one album and a handful of EPs under her belt. To be clear, Ama didn’t design the XT-Whisper herself — the shape is a modernized “remake,” according to Salomon, of an archival sneaker — but she did dictate the coral hues of its delicate colorway, inspired by Japanese Ama pearl divers (no direct relation to Ama herself besides the fact that she and most Ama divers are women). It may look elegant, but the XT-Whisper remains a sturdy crossover trail-lifestyle shoe fitted with all manner of subtle tech, including Salomon's typical Sensifit “foot cradling” upper and an extended “anti-debris” tongue.
NEW BALANCE DISTRICT VISION FUELCELL SC ELITE V5
District Vision and New Balance have a formula that just works. On the aesthetic level, District Vision rebirths New Balance’s beastly performance shoes as elegant daily drivers through tonal and textural colorways that fit into its world. District Vision’s version of the flattened MT10O offset its utilitarian appeal with organic suede, for instance, while the District Vision FuelCell SuperComp Elite V4 softened the upper to highlight the artful angular sole unit. For the sequel sneaker, District Vision again subverts a performance shoe’s tech with single-shade makeups that emphasize form, not function, yielding a surprisingly clean sneaker that could just so happen to run a marathon.
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