Stefon Diggs Test-Drives Thom Browne’s Surprise New Sneaker Collab

Speaking of accessories: When Thom Browne was developing his new running shoe with Asics, he started where he always does. “It needed to work perfectly with that gray suit,” Browne tells me.

The resulting trainer marks the designer’s very first sneaker collaboration. “I never really wanted to do it,” Browne says, matter-of-fact as ever. (He famously prefers a polished black wingtip.) In the 25 years since Browne, 60, recast American menswear with a radically shrunken version of the classic salaryman suit, the relevance of the luxury-sneaker collab has oscillated wildly, rising and falling along with practically every other trend under the sun. But the Thom Browne look—with its extreme yet exacting proportions—has remained singular and striking.

Browne likes to say that his gray suit never gets old—and, indeed, he’s regularly using runway shows and other public moments to remind everyone about his most influential design. “I always feel like I want to make sure that people see my collections are always evolving, but [also] that they’re always staying true to where they started,” Browne says.

He melded innovation and tradition once again when he started the year with the Thom Browne fall 2026 runway show at the second annual GQ Bowl, held in San Francisco at the stately Legion of Honor. “I’m 25 years into this, and GQ has been with me almost all of those 25 years, so I’m taking this moment to almost reintroduce Thom Browne to the world,” he says. “I just want to reemphasize the importance of what I created 25 years ago, and so the collection is based in that world and the strength and the power in that singular idea.”

Photograph by Bowen Fernie

GQ Bowl also marked the official debut of the Asics collab, a spiffy tricolor-tipped rendition of Asics’s techy Gel-Kayano 14, which, in its nearly-two-decade history, has been a favorite blank canvas for designers. “It’s just a really good technical, utilitarian sports shoe,” Browne says. His goal was not to reinvent the sneaker, but rather to introduce it into his rigorous aesthetic universe. “I didn’t want to overthink it. I wanted to make it as simple as possible,” he says. Like all Thom Browne footwear, the Kayanos are fit with the brand’s signature grosgrain red-white-and-blue tab at the heel. Otherwise, he left the original design alone.