The Best New Sneakers of 2020

Hype, resale value, and visibility on social media inevitably come into play when thinking about the biggest sneakers of the year—and rightfully so. These elements typically compound to elevate interest in a shoe, keeping it in the hearts, minds, and wallets of the sneaker community. That's not to say those sneakers aren't deserving. Marketing plays into our perceptions, but a great sneaker is a great sneaker—just because a popular ice cream brand collaborates on one of the hottest silhouettes of the moment doesn't mean it didn't earn the praise it garnered. What it didn't do, however, was bring much new to the table.

The point of this list is to celebrate sneakers that stood out in 2020 for offering something more, like innovative performance technology, advanced manufacturing techniques, or at the very least, a fresh take on a vintage aesthetic. It's important to recognize that great new designs are being created even if retro models still reign supreme in the sneaker world.

These might not have been the most popular shoes of the year, but deserve praise for being the best new sneakers of 2020. —Zac Dubasik

Release Date: July 17

Price: $500

The Nike ISPA Road Warrior is easily the most controversial inclusion on this list. Why exactly does it retail for $500? Who's making it sell out every time, and then resell for even more? What do you even do in it, anyway? Truth be told, those things aren't as important when the shoe did what a good new sneaker should do: got us talking. It'd be one thing if we were ignoring it altogether, but the reality was quite the opposite. Yes, the shoe is perplexing. Its triple Zoom Air cushioning, Tabi toe, and zip tie-like buckles are striking features on their own, and combining them all together results in something you either find fascinating or grotesque. It's also daring, and should get some props for pushing the envelope, even if it's not quite clear what direction it's pushing it in. One of my co-workers put it best, this is a sneaker for people who get the new iPhone on Day 1. —Riley Jones

Release Date: October 23

Price: $150

There was a lot of debate on whether this sneaker should make the list. Some might argue that it's not a "new sneaker." It's based off the New Balance 2002, which is from 2010, but it replaced the sole unit with that of the 860v2, a shoe that received the retro treatment last year. It was too expensive for New Balance to recraft the original 2002 tooling (the sneaker retailed for $250 a decade ago) so the the 2002R was created. It's seen some buzz. The collaboration with Versace designer Salehe Bembury is the biggest moment for the sneaker this year, but there have also been collaborations with Taiwan's Invincible and Korea's Thisneverthat, both of which quickly sold out. The 2002R has also come out in inline colorways, all of which have been good so far. Here's what the 2002R has going for it: It's riding the wave of grey New Balance sneakers that started with the 990v4 a few years ago and really turned up this year with the re-release of the 992. It's not as expensive as the aforementioned sneakers, because it's not made in America, but still delivers quality. It's also comfortable, which is a must-have attribute given the current state of the world. —Matt Welty

Release Date: November 12

Price: $220

Nike's outdoor-focused ACG (All Conditions Gear) line got a jolt of energy when Acronym designer Errolson Hugh brought his techwear sensibility to resurrect the often-forgotten label in 2014. He may have presented his final collection in 2018, but Hugh left ACG in a much better place than he found it. The line has felt fresh ever since, pumping out quality new silhouettes like the React Terra Gobe, Terra Antarktik, and Zoom Terra Zaherra. 2020’s Mountain Fly stands out, though, for not only shielding against the elements via its Gore-Tex upper, but borrowing performance insights from Nike’s category-defining Next% running series—like a carbon fiber plate and React foam cushioning (as well as aesthetic cues). It’s a rare combination of an outdoor shoe with minimal compromise to protection that also offers the latest non-outdoor tech—and in a package that still looks sleek and refined. —Zac Dubasik

Release Date: September 21

Price: $200

The reveal of a new signature basketball shoe might not make the kind of lasting impression it did 10 years ago, but when the greatest basketball player alive adds the 18th installment to his collection, it definitely still matters. Nike officially unveiled the LeBron 18 this past July shortly after it had been spotted on LeBron James' feet during a Lakers practice in Orlando's NBA Bubble. Nothing about this past NBA season was normal, but Nike did its best to keep things familiar for James by giving the 18 an upgraded Knitposite 2.0 upper and heel Swoosh placement that has remained a constant for the line since the 15. Air Max cushioning in the heel is also carried over from the prior year's setup. Surprisingly, an Air Max bag has also been added to pad the tongue, a rather unorthodox detail that likely isn't fully understood until you're running down the court on a fast break or posting up an NBA forward. Most importantly, the 18 is what LeBron laced up to capture his fourth NBA title, his first with the Lakers. He wore them throughout his playoff run and hoisted the Larry O'Brien in a Kraft Mac n' Cheese-colored "Melon Tint" pair. Sure, people aren't using bots to cop LeBrons in 2020, but he achieved greatness in them. That still matters, whether they flip for a lot of money on the resell market or not. —Mike DeStefano

Release Date: July 3

Price: $130

Will we actually need sneakers when humans finally escape this hellish rock? One hopes that by then we'll be blasting by on jetpacks in low-gravity environments or just floating around peacefully while "The Blue Danube" plays via the microchips embedded in our brains, but Nike still deserves credit for imagining what footwear might look like on the final frontier. Its Space Hippie line of shoes, which debuted this summer, is meant to look like something a human might construct with limited resources while stranded on a distant planet. Their design brief itself is a reminder of how limited resources are here on Earth. They aren't just galactic fantasy products, though, they are Nike's lowest carbon footprint shoes ever. Often this kind of environmentally-minded shoe doesn't generate much noise in sneakerhead circles, but the Space Hippie won over that crowd with a Tom Sachs-esque look and silhouettes that feel forward-thinking. With our feet still firmly on the ground, this may be the closest we get to space for now. —Brendan Dunne

Release Date: April 4

Price: $90

There's no denying just how good of a 2020 that New Balance has had. While most of its momentum has come by way of collaborations with the likes of Joe Freshgoods or Aime Leon Dore on silhouettes from its archive, the brand also introduced a new lifestyle model into the mix with the 327, an homage to vintage sneakers like the 320, 355, and SuperComp. It was first introduced to the public by way of Charaf Tajer's Casablanca when the Parisian designer released two colorways of what he referred to as "cool Italian granddad shoes," with premium details like perforated leather and gold aglets back in April. More collabs followed. Levi's covered it in denim. Concepts took it to Cape Cod. But the 327's staying power has been thanks to the consistent series of nylon and suede general release colorways that were much easier to acquire. Some might not like the giant "N" logo placement. New Balance purists might stick to the 990 series. But for $89.99, it's hard to knock New Balance's contemporary nod to the decades past as a great everyday sneaker to add to the weekly rotation. —Mike DeStefano

Release Date: February 16

Price: $250

Kanye West's foray into basketball was a long time coming. A Yeezy hoops shoe had been teased since the summer of 2017, when West was spotted alongside 2 Chainz playing basketball with the UCLA men's team in a pair of Wave Runner-like high-tops. That version of the shoe never released, but after a few haphazard sketches and work-in-progress samples, the Quantum (QNTM) was finally born. The Boost-cushioned shoe was released in February and came in two versions: a lifestyle iteration with exposed Primeknit and a performance "BSKTBL" variation with TPU reinforcements. The latter didn't take off on the NBA courts the way one may have expected—perhaps due to the shoe's heavy use of reflective 3M, which was rumored to make it ineligible for on-court use—but it was a strong introduction nonetheless. Its NBA All-Star rollout was one of the weekend's biggest, with all-terrain Sherp vehicles taking to the streets of Chicago to deliver pairs to fans. —Riley Jones

Release Date: October 17

Price: $180

Year in and year out, the new Air Jordan game shoe occupies a unique space of simultaneously being one of (if not the) best-performing basketball shoes of the year, and a shoe that few collectors give a second thought to. The Air Jordan 35 has already been on the feet of many NBA players, and will continue to be throughout the next season—but it also will inevitably end up on sale racks. Hype, in the sense we’ve come to know it in the sneaker world, isn’t really the point of a new Air Jordan model, though. It simply “has to be the best playing shoe, period,” according to its designer, Tate Kuerbis. Based on my experience playing in the model, that objective was achieved here. It’s a perfect example of Jordan Brand taking something that was already great, in the Eclipse Plate tech introduced in the Air Jordan 34, and refining and evolving it based on player feedback to further realize the concept. —Zac Dubasik

Release Date: June 2

Price: $275

Everything that a new sneaker is supposed to do, this one did. The Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Next% already secured its spot in history before this year even started, crossing the finish line on the feet of runner Eliud Kipchoge as he logged the fastest-ever marathon time in October 2019 while wearing a prototype of the shoe. It wasn't technically world-record time, as that race didn't follow official track and field rules, but it was enough for people to question whether Nike had gone too far with its sneakers. Were these carbon-fiber-plated, Zoom-pod-equipped shoes the equivalent of footwear doping? There were reports ahead of this year's planned Olympics in Tokyo that the shoes would be banned for pushing the boundaries of what shoes can do for an athlete too far. They avoided the ban, although, one suspects Nike might have benefited even more from a marketing perspective had the shoes been disallowed from the global stage. In a year filled with limited footwear and marquee collaborations, the Air Zoom Alphafly Next% is an entirely different type of hype, a true performance model that prompts us to rethink what a shoe can really do. —Brendan Dunne

Release Date: June 26

Price: $75

Is it or is it not a sneaker? That's the biggest debate around the Adidas Yeezy Foam RNNR. The slip-on shoe, which is made out of foam created from algae, has been a talking point since it was first seen in early 2020. Kanye West and Steven Smith, the design director of Yeezy, unveiled the shoe at a Fast Company summit, trotting it out like it was a new iPhone, an innovation that would change the world. In some respects, that was true. Kanye has long wanted Yeezy to be a brand like Apple and an innovation like the Foam RNNR might help him do that, depending on the shoe's scale. The shoe has only released one time thus far, launching in June with the redesign of West's Yeezy Supply site. The first colorway of the Foam RNNR, a model filled with holes and a sloping shape that has brought comparison to motorcycles and automobiles, has an all-white motif inspired by his wife Kim Kardashian West's Armenian heritage. He named it "Ararat" after the mountain which stands as a national symbol of Armenia and is the fabled resting place of Noah's ark. But the Foam RNNR itself is inspired by West wanting to create a pair of stylish Crocs, and he did just that. Just like Crocs, which are having their own resurgence in the quarantine age, the Foam RNNR is a love-it-or-hate-it design. —Matt Welty