I think it’s also worth noting that like… Performance shoes very often eventually become lifestyle shoes, given time and cultural osmosis. All the OG Jordans were performance shoes. The Adidas Superstar was a performance shoe, the shelltoe was literally a tech feature. New Balance 990s were performance shoes. If you can name just about any legendary sneaker that’s more than 20 years old it was probably a performance shoe when it debuted. Even Converse Chuck Taylors were performance shoes once upon a time.

20 years from now it’s very possible that like, Cosmic Unity 3s and Jordan Deltas will be the “hype retros.”

Agreed. They’re super important to the history of sneakers but they’re not actually a good sneaker design. I’d be down with more shoes having an Air Mag colorway but the shoe silhouette itself is not good.

Puma’s problem is inconsistency, IMO. They have hot streaks and they have cold streaks, not just in terms of popularity but in terms of actual design success. Like New Balance on the other hand have ups and downs in popularity, but they’ve always been very consistent in their design language and continuity of thought. The same is very true of Diadora, ASICS, etc. Even Adidas, who people are quick to criticize right now, IMO, they always have at least some good new designs every year.

Puma is very unreliable. They were on fire a few years ago with banger after banger—the RS-X, RS-0, Thunder Spectra, Alteration, the Future Rider, the Cell Endura, all the Rhude collabs, all the Han Kjobenhavn collabs, etc.—but they’re ice cold right now.