For Linda Cui Zhang, it all started with Miu Miu.
When Zhang, an associate fashion director at Nordstrom, first saw the brand’s unlined boat shoes in bleached leather and faded suede on its spring 2024 runway, the silhouette most associated with sailors instantly became her new style obsession. Instead of spending $1,000 for Miu Miu’s deconstructed version, she bought a classic pair from Sperry – the brand that originated the style — and strung beads into the laces. A version of that design eventually found its way into the four-style collection for men, women and kids Nordstrom’s released in collaboration with Sperry this past February.
“It’s rendering this boat shoe from this uniform, this universally recognizable style to a shoe that becomes fun,” Zhang said.
In the last two years, luxury brands have given the preppy boat shoe a high-fashion makeover. Beyond Mui Mui, Bally has a slender pair with an almond toe and a slight heel, while Sacai sells a rounder version with a thick Vibram sole. Just last month, Jonathan Anderson sent a black and taupe two-toned style with a curved outsole down the runway for his menswear debut at Dior.
That adventurous spirit is trickling down the footwear market. Sperry has collaborated with emerging fashion labels like Monse, Collina Strada and Todd Snyder to launch funkier — but still affordable — versions of the style it’s carried for nearly a century. In 2025, the number of boat shoes available more than tripled year over year, according to retail analytics firm Edited.
The renewed desire for boat shoes, for both men and women, is also part of an ongoing shift away from the designer sneaker craze toward classic silhouettes like penny loafers and Mary Janes. But to get consumers to buy in, brands need to bring a new interpretation to the traditional style, introducing offbeat embellishments, slimmer profiles and softer fabrics.
“Now you’re seeing it as a template that people are manipulating, which isn’t the historical norm,” said Josh Peskowitz, brand consultant and former men’s fashion director at Moda Operandi and Bloomingdale’s. “It takes a certain amount of subversiveness to take something that has such cultural meaning and sort of twist it to your own devices … that gives people licence to wear whatever they want.”
Reimagining a Classic
Since its creation in 1937 by Paul A. Sperry — the founder of his namesake brand — as non-slip footwear for sailors, the boat shoe has become a preppy staple synonymous with Breton stripes and polos worn on Ivy League campuses and in palatial vacation homes along the coasts.
But as labels stretch the idea of what a boat shoe can look like, the style is evolving beyond its clean-cut roots. Women are also embracing boat shoes: in the first five months of the year, the women’s boat shoe market has grown seven times faster than men’s, said Beth Goldstein, footwear analyst at Circana.
And while brands are introducing higher-end fabrics for their men’s assortment, the options for women, who are typically more experimental with their style choices, are coming in brighter colours and eye-catching patterns. When Miami-based women’s shoe brand Viani Milano, for example, launched a range of boat shoes in April, it was the matcha-inspired shade of green that sold out first, before the more standard taupe and brown. Two months later, it released a beige suede version with influencer Lilly Sisto that featured red and blue laces — which sold out within a week, said Sofia Lombardi Lavaggi, the brand’s founder and creative director.
The boat shoe “gave us the opportunity to do something a little bit more funky and show it to a larger audience,” Lavaggi said.
Veteran boat shoe makers are also updating their designs to attract a younger, more fashionable audience. Since selling to licensing firm Authentic Brands Group in 2024, Sperry has released a stream of partnerships with of-the-moment brands to help reimagine its classics: a slimmer style with interchangeable laces with Aritzia in March (which sold out in five hours and have subsequently been restocked three times); and a vegetable-tanned Vachetta leather version with Todd Snyder in June.
It’s provided a major boost to a brand that had seen sales stagnate before it was acquired last year. Now, Sperry is on track to increase sales by 40 percent year over year in 2025, with a goal to double its revenue by 2028, said Jonathan Frankel, Sperry’s president.
“Sometimes the stars come together when you’re running and managing a business, and a trend is the wind in your sails,” Frankel added.
Similarly, in the last two years, French shoe maker Paraboot, which first created boat shoes for the French navy in the 1970s, has also used the style’s growing popularity to appeal to a wider audience in its marketing. In April, it debuted a campaign where people across generations sport variations of its boat shoes — from a young male skateboarder in a white tank top and denim wearing a brown leather pair to an older gentleman in a taupe suede version styled with a dress shirt and slacks.
That multi-generational message has translated to sales. In the first six months of 2025, Paraboot’s boat shoe revenue grew 20 percent year over year, the highest increase since the early 2000s, said Pierre Colin, the brand’s marketing and communications director.
“There are too many products in the market … too many brands, and most of the time the new generation wants to go with sure value, the original one,” said Davy Montillet, Paraboot’s brand engagement and sales manager.
Chasing Timelessness
As fashion’s trend cycles shorten, brands investing in the boat shoe’s resurgence are making the item a natural extension of their existing product lines — potentially giving their investment a longer push even after fashion moves on.
Womenswear label Jamie Haller, for example, launched a boat shoe last October in black leather that is built on the same construction as the brand’s unlined penny loafers and newer styles like its low top desert boots — all rooted in the brand’s casual but refined aesthetic that plays with masculine and feminine tropes.
“Leaning into something I feel really connected to is our best way to go forward because then it always comes from an authentic place,” said Haller, the namesake founder and chief executive. “I never want things to come from a hypermarketed place because at some point they just become hollow.”
Swedish shoe maker Morjas’ boat shoes, which it launched last year, also mimic its core offering, made in the same black grain leather and brown suede materials it uses in its penny loafers. This year, Morjas expanded the assortment to include white leather and taupe nubuck in the same silhouette, which has contributed to its boat shoe sales tripling year over year in the first six months of 2025, said Jack Ladow, who handles the brand’s communications.
The strategy also ensures Morjas is leaning into the timelessness of the style and “finding silhouettes that have a nostalgic feeling, but at the same time have the possibility to work 10 years from now.” Ladow added.
There’s more room to experiment, as boat shoes’ likely popularity hasn’t yet peaked. Sales for the style are 80 percent below a previous spike in the mid-2010s, according to estimates from Circana.
“We definitely find that nostalgia in footwear and fashion obviously is a piece of it, especially when things are uncertain out there,” Circana’s Goldstein said. “You want to go to something that reminds you of times that were better.”
