“There’s a history in the running sandal, which was why it felt appropriate when we started styling with it,” says Jackie McKeown, a creative director at Literary Sport, on how the Xero collaboration came to be. Since the brand’s inception, they’ve styled their sleek performancewear not with chunky-soled running kicks but the refined, delicate Genesis. “For me, as someone who runs but works in fashion, I’m never just in running clothing, it’s not so prescriptive. There’s always that in-between. There was this energy where you would be wearing sportswear as your daily uniform.”
Indeed, while these styles take their cues from crunchy-granola hiking sandals (think hearty Tevas or cumbersome Keens), they impart on them the tenets of minimalism, reducing them to their purest, most essential form. We are in something of an era of diminutive footwear (see: low-profile sneakers, ballet slippers, even Chanel’s half-shoes—not to mention the aforementioned flip-flop), but these pare them down even further, in some ways pushing the boundary of what can even be considered a shoe. They are minimalism at its most vital ideal—no frippery, no excess. I find it telling that Literary Sport photographed them with a bottle of water, putting them in conversation with something so undiluted and fundamental, but also essential.
Of course, they also touch upon the ongoing dalliance between fashion and sport, which has expanded its reach from popular sports like basketball and soccer to more niche activities—running and trail hiking among them. Basketball shoes, even running sneakers are a bit on-the-nose, whereas a riff on the hiking sandal is unexpected. “I think they’ve always informed one another,” says McKeown, “But it’s trickling up because running is having such a huge moment, and it’s bled into the fashion space that it’s now influencing how even the styling and how people are putting looks together.” She mentions the way it was presented on the Celine runway, where slim, running tight-adjacent pants were paired with these sandals. “That’s becoming a different character in the menswear world now,” she said. “That ‘elevated sports’ person.”
With Literary Sport, McKeown and her partner Fran Miller have sought to upend traditional sport aesthetics, forgoing aggressive, flashier apparel design for something unexpected—emphasizing gracefulness, restraint, even elegance. Here, they apply that same thinking. Instead of showing their gear with built-up, cushioned running sneakers, which would be obvious, they go the other direction. The result is a kind of austerity that fundamentally changes the accepted silhouette of a running outfit. “The trend with running is to go up, but we go the flip side—we’ve strayed away from the bulky shape,” she says. “Because it feels like there’s something more refined to this.”
