This Season’s Hottest Sneaker Trend Is a Mix Between a Sneaker and a Hiking Boot

This season’s more prominent sneaker trend? It’s hard to find a name for it, but essentially: They’re a mix between sneakers and hiking boots. The sole resembles a balloon animal or a giant piece of gum. Or maybe a mini bouncing house. A layer cake! Bulbous and abundant, these sneakers look like moon boots for adults. Equally suited for the desert terrain as the city streets (and are these two things really that different? Both include rugged terrain and encountering “wild animals”), the heavy-soled shoes ensure that your feet stay protected, creating a kind of dissonance in either place: slightly out of place and absurd.

Skechers recently released three heritage throwbacks, which, lucky for them, neatly track with the latest trends. The bulky shoes and their signature thick soles come in a variety of colorways—and even come adorned with fake fur. Champion has taken a somewhat sleeker and pared-down approach—creating a high-top sneaker in unexpected and contrasting colorways (ones that are unlike any other colors we’ve seen on the market). On the high-end side of things, Acne plays up the “hiking” element of the shoe, with a sneaker that looks like a cross between Tevas and slip-on slides. The Acne iteration 100% looks like what a Silicon Valley CEO might wear on the daily.

These iterations are descendants of the Balenciaga Triple S sneakers, debuted in 2017 and arguably the most important sneaker of the 21st century. The clunkiness of the shoe, and the way it extends up the ankle, is evocative of armor. These shoes are there to protect you from the elements of urban life. An extension of the gorpcore trend we saw a few years ago (that still persists to this day), these sneakers wouldn’t look a hair out of place paired with a Patagonia fleece and tearaways.

It’s worth noting how heavy these clunky sneakers are, alerting you to the physicality of your body. It’s as if the shoe is weighing you down, literally grounding you into the floor beneath you. There’s something charming about clunking around in shoes that feel too big for you, just as you did as a child playing dress-up, but in a fashion context. As writer Jamie Lauren Keiles, detailed about their experience wearing the aforementioned Balenciaga Triple S’s for SSENSE, “The Triple S works like an optical illusion: so clumsy and overinflated that anything nearby appears agile and waifish.”

These big shoes, the antithesis of ballet flats or the barely-there mules found at the Row this season, present an idea of what a sneaker or hiking boot looks like without any of the usefulness. “Running in the shoes at the YMCA, my mile time was six minutes slower than average, which is only to suggest, the Triple S is not a sneaker,” writes Keiles. The shoes look sporty but without any substance, creating an interesting irony favored among fashion communities. “Though the shoe is piled high with so much sneakerness, it doesn’t seem to care that its traits came to exist as a product of the search for more agility and comfort. So many soles, signifying nothing. The Triple S expresses the idea of a sneaker without ever becoming one,” they continue.

It seems that the clunky sneaker isn’t going anywhere fast. In fact, the trend is getting more sophisticated with new colorways and distinct qualities (such as a bouncy sole or a protected ankle). The trend is simply fun. You can just as easily style the shoes with a full-on gorpcore assemble as with a twee dress—heightening the clashing quality of the sneaker.

This trend varies from high to low, with everyone from Skechers and Champions to Acne and Yeezy creating a rugged take on the sneaker. We’ve rounded up our faves below.

Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue