Sneaker-Loafers Were Weird, Sandal-Loafers Are Weirder (EXCLUSIVE)
Once a rare oddity, sneaker-loafers are now inescapable. They represent a crowded niche that stretches from hardy hiking loafers to dad-shoe loafers. In this overabundance of hybrid footwear it takes some ingenuity to stand out, and KEEN’s UNEEK Loafer WK is the very picture of ingenious.
KEEN’s first foray into sneaker-loafers, which made quite a splash upon its debut earlier this year, blends a formal leather shoe with an outdoorsy bungee-corded sandal. In fact, it feels less like a sneaker-loafer than a sandal-loafer, which makes it that much better than the rest.
The handwoven leather upper sticks to loafer-making conventions except for the interwoven leather cords wrapping around the front of the foot, mimicking KEEN’s ugly-cool braided UNEEK sandal.
Any sneaker-loafer is, by nature, a freaky piece of footwear. Merging two shoes that are stylistically poles apart is a wild concept but as a sandal-loafer, the UNEEK Loafer feels especially fun and Frankensteined.
The loafer-ization of KEEN’s trekking sandal may look especially peculiar but it’s a certified hit.
When the shoe’s original all-black color scheme first released this summer, it sold out within 48 hours. Its first follow-up, a deep burgundy “Cordovan” pair that also riffs on loafer convention — shell cordovan is a high-end leather often used for the most sumptuous of loafers — releases December 18 on KEEN's website for $200, along with stockists like Extra Butter Dover Street Market, and Likelihood.
KEEN is following a well-trodden path. Although these kinds of mishmash footwear experiments would pop up on occasion over the past two decades, the virality of New Balance’s 1906L sneaker-loafer in 2024 ushered in a new generation of similar shoes from brands as disparate as running label HOKA to eminent skate-shoe maker Vans. But, as the saying goes, it’s not about who does it first, but who does it best.
But, by being perhaps the first sandal-loafer to ever exist, KEEN's shoe somehow pulls off both.
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