He Shoots, He Scores: The Story Behind Louis Vuitton's Football Trainers
The link between football fandom and trainer fetishism is long established, with the label-conscious casuals of the late 1970s and early 1980s pioneering the friendly — and sometimes not-so-friendly — one-upmanship inherent to both contests: the one on the pitch, and the one in the stands, where last week’s Sambas suddenly look tired compared to this week’s Forest Hills.
In the mid-2000s, trend-aware supporters went one step further than their forebears, wearing studless versions of the Nike Tiempos and Adidas Predators that their favourite players were sporting on the pitch. It’s those shoes, in recent years, that men’s style luminaries including Grace Wales Bonner and Martine Rose have referenced in their respective collaborations with the sportswear giants. Meanwhile, Nike has confirmed a spring reissue of the sneaker that many credit with kicking it all off: 2004’s Total 90 III. But Pharrell Williams, creative director of Louis Vuitton menswear, is first to strike with full noughties nostalgia.
The “Footprint Football”, as Pharrell calls his just-retro-enough new LV trainers, has dropped as part of the designer’s Spring/Summer 2025 collection, inspired by “international exchange” — a concept effectively symbolised by the sport that unifies the globe.
Red
€990.00 at es.louisvuitton.com
Blue
€990.00 at es.louisvuitton.com
The shoe made its catwalk debut in June at the Unesco headquarters in Paris, complementing a meticulously made football kit and a made-to-order bomber jacket, both designed to appear, thanks to the use of hexagonal patches, as if crafted from actual leather footballs.
Pharrell and team have since unveiled the trainers in a quartet of other colours: an Arsenal red, a Chelsea blue, a c’mon England white and a dark green (go... Forest Green Rovers?). Each maintains the same form: a calf-leather upper is fortified by a padded rubber sole designed to leave the luxury stalwart’s monogram and floral motifs in the shape of a footprint, hence the former half of the name, on soft turf.
Whether anyone ever wears a pair to kick a ball is perhaps beside the point. The fact is, Pharrell seldom misses, and this is the sneaker silhouette of the season. ○
£885; louisvuitton.com
The Jason Markk Premium Shoe Cleaning Brush, pictured above, is available from the webstore
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