The bad news is it’s time to toss those slutty flip-flops into the back of the closet again. The good news? Peak footwear season has officially begun. Just as the crisp months of fall let your outerwear and knits shine, it’s also the time of year when virtually every type of footwear is in play. Along with a handsome pair of boots and some Vibram-soled sneakers—either of which will look just right with chunky cords and well-worn jeans—there’s also no better occasion to bust out your best loafers, derbies, clogs, and moccasins. And feel free to have a little fun with your socks while you’re at it.
Better still, much of this season’s best footwear looks equally at home on a mountain trail or the floor of some swanky bar, while other options are polished enough for a black-tie event without feeling too stuffy. To assist you in seizing the day, we’ve combed through the runways, new collections, and good ol’ street style to find the boots, shoes, and sneakers worth knowing about this fall.
There’s a time and a place for pro-grade hiking boots, but if you want that same outdoorsy punch in a sleeker silhouette, you’re in luck. There’s a whole grip of weather-ready, low-top hikers in a bevy of materials and colors, complete with the requisite signifiers of outdoorsiness: chunky lug soles, D-ring eyelets, technical mashups of leather and rubber. Banana Republic delivers a handsome design that can easily pull double duty on the trail and around town, while Allen Edmonds and G.H. Bass—two tried-and-true American footwear brands—give the silhouette a more polished, minimalist spin in shades of autumnal olive suede or glossy black leather.
Look, we know it’s fall. We know temperatures are dropping. But we’d be lying to you if we said lightweight, slimline footwear was going anywhere. In fact, this season has brought a fresh crop of sleek shoes that go well beyond the now-ubiquitous ruched loafer trend. Wales Bonner and Celine are adding laces to skinny silhouettes, while Our Legacy takes things in a freakier direction with metallic leather. Likewise, Sabah, the New York label beloved for its slippers, has introduced a new style that splits the difference between a loafer and slipper, rendered in the perfect shade of chocolate brown.
Trail sneakers have remained a fixture in hip neighborhoods and on fashion runways for years (remember when Salomon showed up in a Palace Skateboarding lookbook nearly a decade ago?), but this season’s energy belongs to the approach shoe. Of course, you can keep things crunchy with real-deal variants from mountaineering specialists like Scarpa and Mammut, but you don’t need to limit yourself to the climbing world, thanks to Ralph Lauren’s latest ‘90s-inspired Polo kicks.
There’s a great reason we chose to include a pair of black derbies in GQ’s ultimate cold-weather wardrobe: they’re the Swiss Army knife of dress shoes, and always worth the splurge. Yet, for all the Derby’s timeless appeal, designers are still finding new ways to reinvent and improve it. Allen Edmonds takes the classic route, stripping the shoe down to its essence and building what the brand calls its “highest quality” shoe ever made. Elsewhere, labels like Jacques Solovière and Mfpen get a little more adventurous: the former with a unique pinched leather silhouette, the latter with a block heel and bone-white leather. (And then there’s Sine & Cosine’s showy cut-out design.) Turns out there’s still plenty of room to play with a shoe that’s been around forever.
We’ve seen bold primary colors creep back into men’s wardrobes in recent seasons, but one of this fall’s standout footwear shades is about as desaturated as it gets: gunmetal gray. It’s a color closely associated with Yeezy’s initial burst onto the scene a decade ago, and now you can spot it on reliable staples like Adidas’s riff on the GAT, alongside slightly more IYKYK fare from rising labels like Finland’s Tarvas and France’s Village PM. Even perennial footwear favorite Camper is getting in on the action with a slightly dressier take on the colorway. Consider it a reminder that even an understated shade of gray can make for a pretty covetable pair of kicks.
