Is This Under-The-Radar Sneaker The Next Adidas Samba?

When BAZAAR editors spot a fashion moment in the making, we can't keep it to ourselves. What follows is a transcript of a Slack conversation between senior fashion editor Tara Gonzalez and fashion commerce editor Halie LeSavage discussing the rise of 2023's reigning cool sneaker and how they're wearing it. 

HL: We’ve both been sensing that fashion insiders have anointed a new It-sneaker this year. I’m still seeing Adidas Sambas and New Balance 550s on a daily basis, but I’m clocking just as many Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66 sightings. It feels like I blinked and everyone from strangers on the subway, to Dorsey founder Meg Strachan, to some French retail buyers I met at Copenhagen Fashion Week in January was lacing up in these sneakers.

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TG: YES! I have been seeing sprinklings of the shoe for a while now, but had a feeling it was destined for 'It' shoe status when I saw Bella Hadid wearing a yellow pair on TikTok. She was doing jumping jacks and hopping out of a mini fridge wearing them while on set for something. The Bella effect is real, and I honestly think she's the reason the Adidas Sambas blew up to the extent they did amongst a stylish set who otherwise wouldn't consider wearing an indoor soccer shoes with their The RealReal grails. And like clockwork...those same people are following her lead and wearing the Onitsukas!

HL: I guess this is mostly a Bella Hadid appreciation post—she's first person I saw wearing them, too, and she also has them in a black colourway. And, crucially, she wasn't paid to wear them—they're a style she actually liked and bought herself, according to Onitsuka's head of content, who I emailed to ask about it. The brand also told me that the same situation applies to a pair Kaia Gerber wore recently.

I find this shoe's resurgence so interesting because, like the Samba, it's been around for a-g-e-s. The earliest iteration, the Onitsuka Cortez, was released in 1969. Then the brand was revamped in 2002 with a re-release of the sneaker everyone is wearing now. (This Slack history lesson has been brought to you by a corporate PDF, ha.) The shoe hasn't changed all that much over all these decades: It's still a low-top, almost ballet-flat-adjacent sneaker with spiky soles, a curved toe, and arced stripes along the sides.

Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66 Sneaker

Design-wise, this feels so right for right now. The logo isn't so obvious that wearing it feels like pledging allegiance to a huge brand. It's comfortable and vaguely athletic, but doesn't make me look like I'm en route to a CrossFit session. (At least, I don't think so?)

TG: Actually, if anything...it makes you look like the deadliest woman in the world AKA the bride AKA Black Mamba AKA Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. She wore the yellow Onitsukas with her iconic yellow black stripe jumpsuit, which I don't think that many people realize?

HL: Agreed, though in non-film-buffs' defence, fashion people today wear the sneakers a lot less...lethally than Thurman did onscreen. Around the city, I've seen a lot of women wearing the sneakers with denim maxi skirts and leather aviator jackets, or going the off-duty-model route with jeans and a blazer, like actual off-duty-model Kaia Gerber.

TG: Totally. I honestly think that's the appeal of the sneaker, there's something really exciting about seeing it out of context that resonates with how people are dressing today. When I think of Gen Z and their interest in personal style...I think of sneakers like the Samba or the Onitsuka worn with a vintage leopard print Blumarine skirt or a great penny lane coat. Just like every generation before them, they want to look cool—who doesn't?!—but I think their definition of what cool looks like is really different.

For a while, especially in the 2010s, looking cool was synonymous with curation: An aesthetic muted Instagram grid, the kind of hair that never has a stray out of place, outfits that followed the conventional style rules...full looks and lots of matching. The thing that makes people look "cool" right now, in 2023, is when they don't look like they're really trying—that's why everyone is still so enamoured with the effortlessness of the '90s. When you throw on a pair of Onitsukas with a vintage Dior slip nightgown, it looks haphazard in a real spunky way. Like...oh, that girl wore a pair of sneakers because she's actually going to live her life today in that outfit doing things.

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HL: I definitely see so many downtown doyenne, true-Fashion-People interpretations of this sneaker, in the style of the white Salomon sneakers Bella Hadid has also worn or the New Balance 550s. But I think this sneaker has comeback potential outside of New York and Los Angeles style circles, too. I don't think we've mentioned enough just how COMFORTABLE these are, or how many more colour combos there are than the yellow Uma Thurman pair. 

So I have to ask–have you been taking inspiration from Gen Z with the way you've worn yours? Or somewhere else entirely?

TG: It's funny because I never, ever, used to really wear sneakers. All throughout high school and college I stuck to lace up boxing boots (which are also having a moment right now, but that's a different story) or lug-sole platform shoes. Something about sneakers didn't feel very me in a way I can't really pinpoint. I was actually a complete introvert growing up—which would, I think, be a bit shocking to most people who know me now—and I think a large part of me coming into my own confidence was pushing myself to dress in really weird, unexpected ways. I felt like my personality was trapped in this anxious shyness and clothing was the only way I could express how I really felt and eventually escape it.

But in the last couple of years, I think seeing people wear sneakers like the Onitsukas, which I grew up admiring on the cool older girls on my track team at practice, out of context has really excited me. I don't feel comfortable wearing a head-to-toe feminine look most of the time, I like to add hard elements, and the Onitsukas do just that in my eyes. This past weekend I wore them with a Vaquera t-shirt featuring a pug wearing a spiked collar, an asymmetrical white lace skirt, and a vintage YSL Mombasa bag with that signature tough horn handle, and people kept coming up to tell me how cool they thought the shoes were. But I think what's cool about the shoes is less the shoes themselves and more how they took that look to a really unpredictable place. How do you find yourself wearing them?

HL: So I'll start by saying that there's a substantial gap between the way I think I dress and the way I actually dress. I'm having a moment where I'm obsessed with a pair of Miu Miu ballet flats I recently acquired and I wouldn't ever, ever call myself a sneakerhead. I only learned what Grailed was, like, a year ago. But cleaning out my closet over weekend, I took inventory and discovered I have more than 20 pairs of sneakers. 20, including three hard-to-find New Balance collaborations! It was a moment of existential wardrobing crisis. 

When I reflected on it some more, I had to admit that I wear a variation of a white sneaker 95% of the time, and one of them is now a pair of white Onitsukas with slate blue-green accents. The pair I have isn't as flashy as the yellow ones that are all over the place, but that's why they work for me: It's a sneaker I can slip on with a car coat, oversized trousers, and a baseball cap for market appointments (like a few weeks ago), or with a flouncy, puff-sleeve Ganni sundress with a sweater vest layered on top (like last weekend), or with jeans or a matching yoga set to walk my dog (pretty much every morning when I wake up). I love adventurous outfits on other people, but I like to dress most days like I'm a designer giving their runway finale bow myself: somewhat minimal and not overthought, usually with a trouser and some crewneck layers.

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Halie walks her dog in Onitsukas, plus an Asket coat, Asket jeans, Warby Parker sunglasses, and a Mango sweater tied as a scarf. Photo: HALIE LESAVAGE

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Then, wearing the sneakers to BAZAAR HQ with an Everlane blazer, Sézane top, Emme Parsons belt, and Mara Hoffman chinos. Photo: HALIE LESAVAGE

But to your point, these sneakers have the variety to open up a whole universe of outfits and places to wear them. 

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TG: I just love that these days, especially in the past I'd say three weeks, I keep seeing people wearing the Onitsukas every time I leave my house. And normally when you see an item that much it feels a little disheartening, as if people are just copy and pasting some trend they saw on Instagram. But I don't feel that way with these! It doesn't feel like a trend just because everyone I see wearing them is wearing them so differently. It's almost like everyone saw all the unexpected ways people were styling these sneakers and are using them as a catalyst for their own personal style. And it's so exciting to see people having fun with their style, all thanks to a $130 Japanese athletic shoe from 1949. Who would have guessed!

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Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66

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Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66

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Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66

This article originally appeared in Harper’s BAZAAR US.