The Endless Miu Miu-ification of Sneakers Is a Good Thing, Actually
When Miu Miu's design team first envisioned its flattened and softened iteration of New Balance's otherwise elderly 530, they probably knew that they had cooked up a hot shoe. But, surely, they didn't know just how hot. Miu Miu's New Balance 530 sneaker shifted the tectonic plates of footwear culture, kicking up a tidal wave of flat shoe fever that has since swept the world.
And when any sneaker splashes down this hard, a flood of imitators is inevitable.
That's not to complain about every flat, beige, textural, luxe-ish sneaker that's nibbled off of Miu Miu's plate. If anything, I welcome them.
Designer sneakers — and, really, sneakers as a whole — are in a great place right now.
And much of the credit is due to the Miu Miu New Balance inspiring all other footwear labels to step up their game, preferably by squashing down their soles.
It's not just the greater flattening of shoes, though.
The Miu Miu-fluence is visible in cues as simple as the doubled-up laces that have trickled down to sportswear labels like adidas — whose Samba helped spark a low-profile sneaker revolution — and Vans (yes, skate company Vans).
And there's a proliferation of newly flattened Miu Miu-ish shoes being rolled out by fashion imprints as disparate as Maison Margiela, adidas Y-3, Golden Goose, Axel Arigato, and Acne Studios, the latter of which kicked off the summer season with its own familiar-looking brown suede ballet shoes (notice the interwoven multi-lace situation).
Even mainline Prada is clearly picking up what sibling imprint Miu Miu put down. (And let's not even speak of blatant the fast-fashion knockoffs, which even extend to a pair of "slimmed-down" double-laced boat shoes of the Miu Miu variety.)
Certainly, late 2024's Dries Van Noten Suede sneaker boom is as much a result of Miu Miu's New Balance as the endless adidas Samba buzz. (ironically, the DVN shoe is itself being widely imitated.)
And even New Balance itself is borrowing from Miu Miu's big hit, incorporating both multi-lace detailing and squashed suede silhouettes into its recent sneaker lineup.
Astonishingly, none of these overt homages have cut into demand for the OG. Every successive iteration of the Miu Miu New Balance has sold out almost entirely online, even the nutty bleached suede fleece-lined mule version. Crazy that that exists. And that it's also gone.
The halo effect has similarly empowered Miu Miu's in-house sneaker designs, much of which are more or less Miu Miu New Balance-coded and sell about as briskly as four-figure shoes possibly can.
It is all only further proof of the power of Miu Miu's New Balance (and Miu Miu at large).
The Miu Miu-fication of footwear recalls several historic follow-the-leader footwear moments, like the Triple S effect.
In the wake of Balenciaga's thinkpiece-spurring behemoth, a massive shoe that helped Demna's Balenciaga itself become quite massive, luxury labels and sportswear companies alike tripped over their own dad shoe-clad feet to flood the market with similarly thick-soled second bananas.
The difference, of course, is that Miu Miu's tasteful low-top shoe and its many would-be clones will age far more gracefully.
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