Only A$AP Rocky Could Make PUMA’s Wildest Sneaker Work
PUMA’s Mostro shoe is one of the harder styles to wear, given its athletic lineage and foot-hugging Velcro fit. It's a challenge to style the historically sporty sneaker in a day to day look — unless you’re A$AP Rocky, of course.
Rocky, who was memorably tapped as the creative director of PUMA’s F1 line this fall, demonstrated his styling skills at the release of his collection during the 2023 Formula 1 Grand Prix in Las Vegas on November 17.
Rocky wore a neon yellow pair of PUMA Mostro sneakers while strolling to his pop-up with Rihanna, who chose strappy heels for the occasion instead (what no FENTY PUMA creepers?).
Though a sneaker and heel couldn’t be more different, there’s something about the way the Mostro wraps the foot and how Rocky’s pants fall over the PUMA shoe’s angular toe that makes it seem like the couple coordinated their looks, at least on the footwear front.
The Mostro does sort of resemble motorcycle boots, which is likely why they called to Rocky as he worked on his PUMA F1 collab.
Anyways, this wasn’t Rocky's first stab at styling the shoe: A couple weeks back, Rocky wore a white and black pair of Mostros.
But in both instances, Rocky styled the narrow shoe with wide-leg, baggy pants, contrasting the width and length aginst the low-top Mostro. In Vegas, he wore his navy PUMA F1 jeans whereas he previously stacked up some sweats.
The fabric doesn’t really matter here, though. With the Mostro, how the pant meets the shoe (or not) is what counts. It’s all about how Rocky uses the relaxed cut of both pants over the shoe, stacking the pants just over and behind the sneaker's tongue to let it breath (a man has to walk, after all).
That way, he revealed the Velcro closures, highlighting the weirdly futuristic way the Mostro envelopes the foot. This is the kind of shoe you've got to let speak for itself.
PUMA first released the Mostro in 1999, taking inspiration from the disparate realms of track and surf footwear. It was discontinued in the early aughts but PUMA revived the Mostro in 2017 and has since transformed it further through collabs with Coperni and Ottolinger, the latter of whom reimagined the sneaker as a lace-up boot.
A suitably next-level look for a futuristic sneaker, though some of us might need Rocky to show us how the heck we wear them.
