Are you ready to wear snoafers? The deal with the moccasin-sneaker hybrid is coming soon: NPR

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

It’s not a sneaker. He’s not a lazy person. He’s a snoafer (ph) or maybe a sneafer (ph). Well, in any case, it’s the New Balance 1906L, a sneaker-moccasin hybrid that has gone absolutely viral since its debut in the fall fashion collections. Jacob Gallagher of the Wall Street Journal wrote about the shoe and its reception. Hello, Jacob.

JACOB GALLAGHER: Hi.

SUMMERS: All right, Jacob, let’s start with the basic question. Can you just describe what the shoe actually looks like?

GALLAGHER: Okay. So, from the side, your listeners can probably imagine a classic New Balance running shoe. There are mesh panels along it. The big one that went viral is gray and has off-white accents. It looks like what someone would have run the Boston Marathon in in the 1980s.

SUMMERS: (Laughter).

GALLAGHER: If you look at it from above, it doesn’t have any shoelaces. It has no eyelets. It has a sort of slanted vamp, the slanted upper of a moccasin.

SUMMERS: OK, Jacob, no one – to be clear – should ever take my fashion advice. So I want to ask you, where would one wear a shoe like this?

GALLAGHER: So it’s interesting because we’re in this very moment of choose your own adventure in fashion. You know, I’m sure if you look around a modern office you will see that many different dress codes are followed.

When I spoke with the New Balance designers behind this shoe, they didn’t necessarily say, oh, it’s designed to be worn with a suit instead of your traditional leather dress shoe. But I think this is part of a category of shoes that is meant to be looked at. And so I think people will wear it with outfits that will highlight that to some extent and make people come up and say, wait, what are those that you’re wearing?

SUMMERS: OK, so help me understand. What made this shoe so viral? I mean, the reaction online has been crazy.

GALLAGHER: I think we’re in this fashion, in the shoe world in particular, where virality is a goal. This shoe fits that trend, but it also fits this kind of, I would say, comfort-focused trend that we’ve been stuck with since the pandemic, where, you know, dress shoes have really gone the way of the bed. And people wore slip-on shoes, you know. You know, they were soft on the feet. And so that’s what people continue to look for. So it’s a way of giving a little more professionalism. However, again, I don’t see many people wearing this to the office, but it’s definitely a comfort focused shoe.

SUMMERS: Jacob, I have to ask you. Will we see…

GALLAGHER: Yes.

SUMMERS: …Are you wearing snoafers this summer?

GALLAGHER: I’m a fan of it. I had, I think, the cycle of looking at them that a lot of people have had, which is first thinking, what is this? And then finally, I tilted my head a little and smiled at them thinking, wait, is this cool? Just so your listeners know, yes, I would say there’s a 95% chance I’ll buy them.

SUMMERS: That’s Wall Street Journal men’s fashion columnist Jacob Gallagher. Jacob, thank you.

GALLAGHER: Thank you very much – I appreciate it.

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