admin The oversized chaos of Justin Bieber’s devil-may-care style may seem unapproachable to the common man. Who else but a superstar can spend every day in absolutely enormous jeans, a loose-fitting hoodie, a backwards cap, and a pair of sunglasses pulled from an infinite roster of dare-you-to-comment shades? And yet, when it comes to footwear, the Biebs remains steadfastly in favor of kicks that any mortal can slip into. Instead of relentlessly flexing some box-fresh pair of whatever’s about to break the SNKRS app, Justin Bieber is in the streets with gen-pop sneakers that you—yeah, you—can pick up whenever, wherever.
Bieber’s penchant for everyman sneakers might feel like a moment of humility for a mega celebrity, but it’s equally reflective of where the kicks industry sits in 2023. Brands like New Balance, Asics, and Nike still toss out hard-to-come-by drops, but collectively, the public’s fervor for chasing rarified colorways and collabs has crashed. Case-in-point: The sub-$100, 50-year-old Adidas Samba dominated 2022 (and it’s still going strong now—even if it’s inspiring existential crises for some).
The same way that indie musicians have ceded cultural cool to global superstars—like, ahem, Bieber and Pharrell—a sneaker’s clout (if that even exists anymore) now comes more from a relentless, almost algorithmic ubiquity. The curve’s been flattened. Hallelujah! Because now we can all just be like Bieber, and celebrate the glory of easy-to-wear, easy-to-buy sneakers.
We beliebe so much, in fact, that we’ve rounded up a few of Bieber’s highly-available sneaker favorites. Because each of these is an all-time classic sneaker, how you wear it is your call. They’ll all work in a Bieber-approved, ’90s-inflected fever dream, of course, but hold their own in any fit that makes you feel paparazzi-ready.
