Men's Designer Loafers and Sneakers to Wear Now

A man's shoe closet right now really only needs two shapes, a loafer and a sneaker, and the best versions of both are coming from the same handful of houses. Prada's Saffiano Leather Penny Loafer is the plainer of the two, structured and formal in a way that works with almost anything. Gucci's Sylke Horsebit-Embellished Suede Loafers push the same shape toward something softer and more textured. On the sneaker side, Bottega Veneta's Soft Suede Nylon Nappa Orbit Flash Sneaker leans into unusual materials rather than an obvious logo. The two shapes end up covering nearly every occasion a man actually dresses for.

The horsebit loafer has one more variation worth knowing about, a plainer take that trades the usual gold hardware for a subtler metal buckle. Gucci's Jordaan loafer is the obvious starting shape, one the house has made for decades that still reads current without any updating needed. Prada's Montecarlo sneaker sits on the opposite end, a suede runner pulled from an old archive and reissued in a dark brown colorway that photographs closer to a dress shoe than a trainer. A second suede sneaker in black rounds out the group, low profile enough to wear with the same trousers as the loafer. Between the three, a man could cover his entire shoe rotation without buying a single new shape.

Let it be that the current men's shoe rotation rewards texture over logos, whether that shows up on a loafer or a sneaker. Suede and eel-skin finishes keep turning up because they photograph as quiet rather than flashy, which is clearly the intended effect across most of these houses right now. Saint Laurent's Le Loafer and Le Monogram versions both lean on that same eel and leather mix, proof that one house can make a small idea last across several seasons. Gucci and Prada keep circling back to their own archives, reissuing sneaker shapes from decades ago rather than inventing new ones. The loafer is clearly having the bigger moment of the two categories, sleeker and less bulky than it has looked in years. I would still keep one sneaker in rotation for the days a loafer reads as too formal, since the two shapes are meant to trade off rather than compete. Neither shape asks for much styling around it, which is probably the entire appeal.