PUMA’s Slimline Sneaker Is Now a ‘Radical Mule’
The PUMA Mostro is officially back. The slimline, early-naughts sneaker has made a triumphant return in 2024 and now, designers are giving the sporty shoe radical upgrades.
Next up on the list of PUMA Mostro collaborators is French menswear brand Louis Gabriel Nouchi (or LGN, for short) who presented the upcoming collaboration during its SS25 show in Paris.
Louis Gabriel-Nouchi, who cut his teeth at Raf Simons before founding his eponymous brand in 2017, has stripped back PUMA’s slimline racing shoe so it’s only made of one fabric and is a backless mule.
“I synthesized the essence of the iconic Mostro shoes into a radical mule design using a single material, transforming it into both a design object and a comfortable sneaker,” wrote the designer on his Instagram page.
Normally embellished with straps and sporty paneling, this simple slip-on’s single-piece construction means it’s made entirely from EVA rubber compound (yes, it’s yet another foam mule).
The top half of this sneaker might be minimal but the sole isn’t. The anatomical, spiky sole unit from the original Mostro remains on this mule-ified version and it’s only made more prominent by the lack of embellishments elsewhere on the shoe.
If you are looking to get your hands on a pair of these sneakers for the summer, you will unfortunately have to wait until next year. The shoe is available to pre-order now from the LGN website for $150 and will be delivered to customers from January 15, 2025 (it's never too early to start planning summer 2025 outfits).
PUMA’s wild sneaker archive is filled with experimental footwear (check out its older models like the Satori, Yutori Fuyu, and Mikoshi, if you don’t believe me) and it dipped into its left-field past to officially bring back the Mostro at the start of this year.
"They wanted to do something completely non-traditional, non-conventional, and revolutionary," Tung Hoang, PUMA's Archive Manager, previously told Highsnobiety about the mindset of the PUMA Mostro's designers. And since it was brought back in 2024, the shoe has entered increasingly unorthodox territory: there have been spiky 3-D printed Mostros, silver sci-fi inspired Mostros, and knee-high Mostro boots (the latter was displayed during PUMA’s Mostro-centric New York fashion show).
The PUMA Mostro revival continues, now, also in mule form.
