Lifestyle

What Happened to the Bulky Sneaker? They Are Getting Smaller

Published

12 months ago

March 9, 2025

What Happened to the Bulky Sneaker? They Are Getting Smaller

After years of the ever bigger, ever bulkier sneaker, there seems to be bit of a backlash: Sneakers have become sleek, streamlined and, in a word, skinny.

“There was a shift, I think it was in the fall of 2023, where you saw a lot more Sambas on the street, with that slick sole,” said Federico Barassi, the vice president of men’s wear at the Canadian e-commerce site SSENSE, citing the popular Adidas style. “People started to have some fatigue with those big bubble-y, older sneakers.”

Recent runways were awash with aerodynamic and attenuated versions, from Prada’s slipper-like Collapse sneaker with its elasticized foot opening ($975) to Dries Van Noten’s suede sneakers ($475) that referenced 1970s running shoes. Ganni is offering little ballerina lace-ups ($495), while Maison Margiela has released a flattened and cleated riff ($820) on its own popular Replica style. Miu Miu, the reigning cool girl brand, recently released the low-profile Plume ($895), an elegant entrant into the slim sneaker canon.

Larger sportswear brands have picked up on this sylphlike silhouette. Puma brought its classic Speedcat, first introduced in 1999, out of retirement last summer, while Adidas revived its svelte Taekwondo and Tokyo models. Nike is resurrecting the Total 90 III, with a futuristic feel and off-kilter laces, this spring and summer; in late-January the designer Jacquemus sent the horizontally inclined Moon Shoe, a track sneaker introduced in 1972, down his runway as part of a collaboration with the company. In addition to a smaller, sleeker appearance, these styles often have a smooth, tapered profile, akin to a bullet. Or, as GQ recently named them, “torpedo sneakers.”

“It really benefits the big brands that have been around for long enough to have shoes from those eras like the 1960s and 1970s,” said Brendan Dunne, who heads up sneaker coverage at Complex and who also name-checked the Samba’s popularity as a catalyst for the current movement. “One of the interesting things happening in sneaker consumption right now is the rise of brands like On or Hoka taking market share from big brands. And if you think about the slim sneaker trend, I don’t think On or Hoka can participate in that because they’re all about techy shoes and shoes that just have a little bit more girth to them.”

In keeping with fashion’s cyclical nature, these shoes can be seen as a pendulum swing away from what came before, best exemplified by Balenciaga’s influential Triple S sneaker. That shoe, with its built-up sole, created a mania for brawnier footwear and led to the popularity of “dad sneakers” from brands such as New Balance and Asics. In a quest for newness, brands are now countering with slender designs. (Balenciaga, it should be noted, has remained dedicated to its bigger-is-better approach.)

These footwear offerings are also a reaction to the changing cut in ready-to-wear, namely the looser clothing silhouettes dominating apparel, seen particularly in the rise of fuller, relaxed-cut trousers. “Skinny pants and jeans are fading away,” Mr. Barassi said. “And you can style these with the wider trousers, and bell-bottoms, that are trending right now.”

Wide-legged pants are gaining so much traction that they’ve even infiltrated the formal wear category, as demonstrated by flashier dressers like Colman Domingo, Omar Apollo and Robert Downey Jr. at last week’s Academy Awards ceremony.

“The shape of the shoes and the shape of the pants we wear, there’s this inverse correlation,” Mr. Dunne said. “Look back eight years ago when every rapper was wearing skinny jeans and gigantic Balenciaga trainers. Now it’s the other way around: slim, low silhouettes and gigantic pants.”

Additionally, these shoes build upon the already crowded overlap between sport and fashion. They’re leveraging activities like martial arts, rock climbing, wrestling and even the enduring popularity of ballet slippers.

“There’s all these adjacent gorpcore shoes, or low-pro shoes, that put us in this zone,” Mr. Dunne said. “I think of something like the popularity of the Salomon XT-6, which isn’t in this same zone, necessarily, but it sets us up, it bridges the gap between the chunky shoe and this.”

These sneakers also faintly recall the popular shoes of the Y2K era, a now-mythical pre-internet time that continues to cast a spell on younger generations.

“I remember the Prada America’s Cup, everyone wanted that sneaker,” Mr. Barassi said of the brand’s futuristic patent leather and technical mesh sneaker introduced in 1997. “And it had this thinner profile.”

Torben Schumacher, who oversees Adidas Originals, the fashion and lifestyle division of the company, said that once the company noticed the popularity of its Samba and the Gazelle styles, it began to search for new models to resurrect from its archives. Ultimately, it landed on the Tokyo and Taekwondo.

“The latter was designed for martial-arts athletes in the 2000s, but one look at the shoe and you can immediately envision it on a runway or city street,” Mr. Schumacher wrote in an email. Still, Mr. Schumacher wrote that, regardless of the cultural factors leading us to this moment, perhaps the most compelling reason to wear a slim shoe was the most straightforward: “There’s a sense of effortlessness to these low profile styles — both in style and in function.”

Click to comment

Lifestyle

‘Hamnet’ star Jessie Buckley looks for the ‘shadowy bits’ of her characters

Published

1 hour ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

‘Hamnet’ star Jessie Buckley looks for the ‘shadowy bits’ of her characters

Jessie Buckley has been nominated for an Academy Award for best actress for her portrayal of William Shakespeare’s wife in Hamnet.

Kate Green/Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

Kate Green/Getty Images

Actor Jessie Buckley says she’s always been drawn to the “shadowy bits” of her characters — aspects that are disobedient, or “too much.” Perhaps that’s what led her to play Agnes, the wife of William Shakespeare, in Hamnet.

Buckley says the film, which is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, offered a chance to counter a common narrative about the playwright’s wife: that she “had kept him back from his genius,” Buckley says.

Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes in Hamnet.

But, she adds, “What Maggie O’Farrell so brilliantly did, not just with Agnes and Shakespeare’s wife, but also with Hamnet, their son, was to bring these people … and give them status beside this great man. … [And] give the full landscape of what it is to be a woman.”

The film is nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best actress for Buckley. In it, she plays a woman deeply connected to nature, who faces conflicts in her marriage, as well as the death of their son Hamnet.

Buckley found out she was pregnant a week after the film wrapped. She’s since given birth to her first child, a daughter.

Lewis Pullman and Danielle Brooks announced the 2026 Oscar nominees early Thursday morning in Beverly Hills, Calif. The 98th Academy Awards ceremony will be held on March 15.

“The thing that this story offered me, that brought me into this next chapter of my life as a mother was tenderness,” she says. “A mother’s tenderness is ferocious. To love, to birth is no joke. To be born is no joke. And the minute something’s born into the world, you’re always in the precipice of life and death. That’s our path. … I wanted to be a mother so much that that overrode the thought of being afraid of it.”

Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes and Joe Alwyn plays her brother Bartholomew in Hamnet.

Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features

hide caption

toggle caption

Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features

Interview highlights

On filming the scene where she howls in grief when her son dies

I didn’t know that that was going to happen or come out, it wasn’t in the script. I think really [director] Chloé [Zhao] asked all of us to dare to be as present as possible. Of course, leading up to it, you’re aware this scene is coming, but that scene doesn’t stand on its own. By the time I’d met that scene, I had developed such a deep bond with Jacobi Jupe, who plays Hamnet, and [co-stars] Paul [Mescal] and Emily Watson, and all the children and we really were a family. And Jacobi Jupe who plays Hamnet is such an incredible little actor and an incredible soul, and we really were a team. …

The Real 'Hamnet' Died Centuries Ago, But This Novel Is Timeless

The death of a child is unfathomable. I don’t know where it begins and ends. Out of utter respect, I tried to touch an imaginary truth of it in our story as best I could, but there’s no way to define that kind of grief. I’m sure it’s different for so many people. And in that moment, all I had was my imagination but also this relationship that was right in front of me with this little boy and that’s what came out of that.

On what inspired her to pursue singing growing up

I grew up around a lot of music. My mom is a harpist and a singer and my dad has always been passionate about music, so it was always something in our house and always something that was encouraged. … Early on, I have very strong memories of seeing and hearing my mom sing in church and this quite intense mercurial conversation that would happen between her, the story and the people that would listen to her. And at the end of it, something had been cracked between them and these strangers would come up with tears in their eyes. And I guess I saw the power of storytelling through my mom’s singing at a very young age, and that was definitely something that made me think I want to do that.

On her first big break performing as a teen on the BBC singing competition I’d Do Anything — and being criticized by judges about her physical appearance

I was raw. I hadn’t trained. I had a lot to learn and to grow in. I was only 17. I think there was part of their criticism which I think was destructive and unfair when it became about my awkwardness, or they would say I was masculine and send me to kind of a femininity school. … They sent me to [the musical production of] Chicago to put heels on and a leotard and learn how to walk in high heels, which was pretty humiliating, to be honest, and I’m sad about that because I think I was discovering myself as a young woman in the world and wasn’t fully formed. … I was different. I was wild, I had a lot of feeling inside me. I could hardly keep my hands beside myself and I think to kind of criticize a body of a young woman at that time and to make her feel conscious of that was lazy and, I think, boring.

On filming parts of the 2026 film The Bride! while pregnant

I really loved working when I was pregnant. I thought it was a pretty wild experience, especially because I was playing Mary Shelley and I was talking about [this] monstrosity, and here I was with two heartbeats inside me. Becoming a mom and being pregnant did something, I think, for me. My experience of it, it’s so real that it really focuses [me to be] allergic to fake or to disconnection.

Since my daughter has come and I know what that connection is and the real feeling of being in a relationship with somebody … as an actress, it’s very exciting to recognize that in yourself and really take ownership of yourself.

I’m excited to go back and work on this other side of becoming a mother in so many ways, because I’ve shed 10 layers of skin by loving more and experiencing life in such a new way with my daughter. I’m also scared to work again because it’s hard to be a mother and to work. That’s like a constant tug because I love what I do and I’m passionate and I want to continue to grow and learn and fill those spaces that are yet to be filled — and also be a mother. And I think every mother can recognize that tug.

On the possibility of bringing her daughter to travel with her as she works

I haven’t filmed for nearly a year and I cannot wait. I’m hungry to create again. And my daughter will come with me. She’s seven months, so at the moment she can travel with us and it’s a beautiful life. And she meets all these amazing people and I have a feeling that she loves life and that’s a great thing to see in a child. And I hope that’s something that I’ve imparted to her in the short time that she’s been on this earth is that life is beautiful and great and complex and alive and there’s no part of you that needs to be less in your life. You might have to work it out, but it’s worth it.

Lauren Krenzel and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.

Lifestyle

‘Evil Dead’ Star Bruce Campbell Reveals He Has Cancer

Published

2 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

‘Evil Dead’ Star Bruce Campbell Reveals He Has Cancer

Bruce Campbell
I’m Battling Cancer

Published
March 2, 2026
6:15 PM PST

Bruce Campbell has revealed he has cancer, but says it’s a type that’s treatable, though not curable.

“The Evil Dead” actor shared the news Monday in a message to fans, writing, “Hi folks, these days, when someone is having a health issue, it’s referred to as an ‘opportunity,’ so let’s go with that — I’m having one of those.” He continued, “It’s also called a type of cancer that’s ‘treatable’ not ‘curable.’ I apologize if that’s a shock — it was to me too.”

bruce campbell cancer announcement

Campbell said he wouldn’t go into further detail about his diagnosis, but explained his work schedule will be changing. “Appearances and cons and work in general need to take back seat to treatment,” he wrote, adding he plans to focus on getting “as well as I possibly can over the summer.”

As a result, Campbell says he has to cancel several convention appearances this summer, noting, “Treatment needs and professional obligations don’t always go hand-in-hand.”

bruce campbell evil dead everett 2

He says his plan is to tour this fall in support of his new film, “Ernie & Emma,” which he stars in and directs.

Ending on a determined note, Campbell told fans, “I am a tough old son-of-a-bitch … and I expect to be around a while.”

Lifestyle

‘Scream 7’ takes a weak stab at continuing the franchise : Pop Culture Happy Hour

Published

13 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

‘Scream 7’ takes a weak stab at continuing the franchise : Pop Culture Happy Hour

Neve Campbell in Scream 7.

Paramount Pictures

hide caption

toggle caption

Paramount Pictures

The OG Scream Queen Neve Campbell returns. Scream 7 re-centers the franchise back on Sidney Prescott. She has a new life, a family, and lots of baggage. You know the drill: Someone dressing up as the masked slasher Ghostface comes for her, her family and friends. There’s lots of stabbing and murder and so many red herrings it’s practically a smorgasbord.

Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture