Louis Vuitton is propelling footwear into a new dimension with the Cruise 2027 collection. It presents several futuristic shoes that seem to be blending the borders between luxury, sportswear, and even performance shoes. All new styles are under the creative leadership of Nicolas Ghesquire and travel a road between various unexpected directions like basketball sneakers or martial arts shoes.
These shoes were featured for an earlier showcase of Louis Vuitton’s Cruise 2027 collection in New York. Exploring the tension between Louis Vuitton’s eternal Parisian craftsmanship and the frenetic visual language of the city, Ghesquire challenged classic notions of luxury by exploring new shapes, materials, and construction methods that feel radically futuristic.
Perhaps most striking is a hybrid sneaker that marries the supportive upper pattern often seen in a basketball high top with the flat sole you might see on a martial arts shoe. While the contraption looks sport-inspired, its silhouette is anything but traditional: no laces and a slip on design make it seem even more suave, giving it a shape that appears almost as if it’s a future throwback.
Metallics also feature heavily in the range. Silver, gold, lavender, and blue editions give many of the shoes an almost mirror-like finish, while black and white editions feature on authentic-looking leather constructions. The metallic sheets are textured by a series of curved valleys and ridges that roll along the uppers, giving the impression of movement even when the shoes are at rest.
This information forms a part of a wider Louis Vuitton language of design, which has been in the process of integrating tech-like form into the luxury world. Moving past the fragility or simply decorative aspects of a shoe, the Cruise 2027 designs make them seem more architectural. Their strange proportions and construction makes them seem almost engineered for another time.
Another element of the collection is in the footwear. A portion of the shoes have graphic motifs based off of the work of American pop artist Keith Haring. The link ties the new designs back to Louis Vuitton’s own history of working with artists and reworkings of old designs, and in reports of the collection the Haring link also alludes to a 1930s Louis Vuitton suitcase that the artist repurposed.
The modern essence of combining sport, art, and luxury is reflected in many models of shoes. A two-tone white-and-yellow sneaker, for instance, employs a textured surface that clearly distinguishes it from ordinary monogram sneakers. Meanwhile, another pair employs sleek, metallic veneers that make the shoes look less like shoes and more like futuristic body armour.
This experimentation aligns seamlessly with the Louis Vuitton philosophy of Ghesquire. Under the designer, collections frequently play with opposites, and historical references with futuristic ones. At Louis Vuitton Cruise 2026, the house combined medieval inspirations with glam-rock, and futuristic elements, underlining it’s designer’s desire to unite eras. LVMH.
That conversation and red legwear later informed Cruise 2027 footwear, which adds that call to action with a very urban soundtrack. Shoes that pack personality, brought to life by football and martial arts, pop art and the far frontiers of couture craftsmanship.
