Feature: The Best Low-Profile Trainers
Low profile means the sole stays thin and the shape stays close to the foot. After a few years of everything being stacked and chunky, these are the ones we keep reaching for — easier to wear with a trouser hem, and they don't add an inch to your height whether you wanted it or not.
What "low profile" actually means
Three things: the sole is thin, the shape sits close to the foot, and the collar stops at or below the ankle bone rather than climbing it.
That's it. It isn't a brand or a category the manufacturers use — it's a description of a shape, and it's mostly defined by what it isn't. After several years of chunky soles and stacked midsoles, low profile is the reaction.
The practical difference is where the trouser sits. A chunky trainer needs a hem that clears it or the whole thing looks like scaffolding. A flat sole lets the trouser fall properly, which is why these work under a wide leg and a chunky pair often doesn't.
Five we like at the moment.
1. Diadora Hairy Trainer, Moonlit Ocean
The hairy suede is the whole thing. It's brushed so the nap catches light differently depending on which way you rub it, which makes a plain blue shoe look considerably more expensive than it is.
Diadora has been making shoes in Italy since the late 1940s and this shape comes out of that — a low tennis silhouette on a gum sole. Wears well with anything loose and tonal, and the blue is dark enough not to show much.
Worth knowing: brushed suede marks in the rain and the nap flattens where it rubs. That's the material doing what suede does, not a fault, but it's not the pair for a wet walk to the station.
2. New Balance 204L, Silver Metallic and Black
Silver mesh, black N, and a shape borrowed from early 2000s running rather than the seventies revival everyone else is mining. It reads sharper than a suede trainer and it's the one to wear when everything else you've got on is soft.
New Balance fit runs generous through the toe, so if you're between sizes the smaller one usually wins here.
3. Karhu Mestari
Karhu is Finnish and has been making running shoes since the 1910s — long enough that they sold adidas the three stripes in 1952, reportedly for two bottles of whisky and a small sum of money.
The Mestari is one of their seventies runners and it's the flattest thing on this list. Almost no stack under the heel, suede overlays on a nylon body, and the big M across the side doing all the work. Good under a wide leg, where a bulkier shoe would look like it was holding the trouser up.
4. Veja Volley Suede, Tent Natural Eagle
A volleyball shoe shape in tan suede on a gum sole, which is about as easy as a trainer gets. The tan is the useful part — it goes with brown, cream, denim and khaki without any of the effort a white shoe demands.
Veja says it uses wild rubber from the Amazon and organic cotton bought direct from producers. That's the brand's account rather than ours; what we can tell you is that the suede holds up better than the leather versions do.
5. Mizuno MXR, Snow White and Lilac Chiffon
The most obviously sporty of the five, and the lightest. White mesh, silver overlays, a lilac flash — proper running construction rather than a running-inspired one, because Mizuno mostly still makes running shoes.
The silver dates it deliberately to about 2003, which is either the appeal or the problem depending on how you feel about that period. We're for it.
The ones you can wear to work
If the office is the question, the Diadora and the Veja are the answers. Both are suede, both are on a gum sole, and neither reads as sportswear from across a room — which is what makes the difference between a trainer you can wear with tailoring and one you can't.
The Mizuno and the New Balance are the opposite. They're running shoes and they look it, which is the appeal on a Saturday and a problem on a Tuesday.
What they have in common
Not much, which is the point. Two are Italian and Finnish running shoes, one is a French court shoe, one is Japanese, one is American. What they share is a thin sole and a shape that stops at the ankle rather than climbing it.
If you've spent three years in something chunky, the first week in a flat sole feels strange. It passes.
The full range is in women's footwear.
