Sales of boat shoes rose for the first time in a decade

Once the exclusive domain of yacht club habitués and fans of the East Coast preppy style, boat shoes are quietly making their way back into mainstream fashion. In 2024, following their grand reappearance on Miu Miu’s SS24 runway, this shoe style returned to the scene and quickly proliferated in the following collections from Bally, JW Anderson, The Row, Burberry, Valentino, Prada, and Bottega Veneta. But while the boom on the catwalks was immediate, actual sales took longer to take off. Now, new data suggests that boat shoes may truly have entered a more concrete phase of their comeback — albeit gradually and with some caveats. According to Footwear News, a division of WWD, citing data from retail analytics firm Circana, the category has recorded its first annual sales increase in about ten years. “For the first time in ten years, the boat shoe category grew in the first quarter of 2025, with a 24% increase compared to the same period last year,” said Beth Goldstein, footwear and accessories analyst at Circana.

Nonetheless, the sales volume remains relatively marginal in the broader fashion context. “The share is still below 1% of the entire fashion category,” she explained. Some trends, after all, exist only within the “fashion bubble” and quickly get replaced once they attempt to break through it. Despite growing enthusiasm from designers and retailers, the return of the boat shoe is still in an early transitional phase. Sales are increasing, but not yet booming; consumers are intrigued, but not fully convinced. Circana's data, which excludes direct-to-consumer sales, shows that the dollar value of the sector remains 80% below the peak levels reached in the mid-2010s. In short, boat shoes are experiencing a renewed wave of interest, but have not yet returned to their former glory. Interestingly, the strongest performance isn’t coming from the men’s segment — historically the main market — but from the women’s category. Goldstein attributes this to the more fashion-forward reinterpretations of the model, which now visually resemble ballet flats — two segments already growing in women’s footwear. In other words, it’s the reinventions, more than the classic models, that have resonated with consumers for whom this shoe may have remained a semi-formal and "summer-only" style.

According to WWD, retailers are starting to detect signs of this shift. At Ssense, Freddy Barassi, VP of menswear buying, reported growing demand this year, citing increased interest in brands ranging from Auralee to Sebago. “We’ve always had a good response to boat shoes, but this season we definitely saw a spike,” he said. Nordstrom’s men’s fashion director Jian DeLeon echoed a cautious optimism and acknowledged increased interest thanks to a recent partnership with Sperry. “We’ve only scratched the surface of this trend,” he stated. At Mytheresa, menswear buying director Sophie Jordan observed a more nuanced response. While customers are beginning to respond to the trend, it’s most evident in the less literal versions of the boat shoe — reinterpretations that are also suitable for urban contexts, not just for vacation wear. “It works better when it’s not too rigid an interpretation of the boat shoe,” she noted.