Best Sneakers for Women: I Tried and Reviewed 4 Viral Pairs of Sneakers

Here are my honest reviews, including sizing, support and how much they caused blisters.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt personally victimized by your feet. Yup, me too. I have what I call “unhappy feet” — tootsies that are overly sensitive, always complaining and very prone to bleeding and blistering. As a result, I’ve been denied many things: chunky loafers, boat shoes, affordable ballet flats (insert sad violin).

But I’ve learned to survive, nay, thrive. I’ve come up with rules like only don one new pair of shoes a week, wear said footwear in short bursts to get your feet used to them and ALWAYS invest in blister socks. But recently, that all went out the window as I tried four pairs of TikTok’s trendiest spring sneakers.

All anyone seems to want to know on TikTok (besides why aren’t there more songs about Joe Alwyn on Taylor Swift’s new albums) is what shoes the girlies are wearing this spring. You see, last year, it was all about the Adidas Sambas. Honourable mentions also go to the Nike Dunks and New Balance 990s. But after you’ve worn those into the ground, what happens next? Simple: We need to pick a It shoe of spring/summer 2024 and after extensive research, in the running are the Adidas Gazelles, New Balance 550s, Puma Palermos and Vans Classic Slip-Ons.

Enter me sacrificing my feet for the sake of fashion. The experiment: Wear and style all four spring shoes for a week. The rules: Go about my day-to-day life and bare my soul (pun intended) in the review process. The results: A few blisters, lots of cute outfits and many *thoughts*. Read on for my honest reviews of some of spring’s best sneakers for women.

Day 1: New Balance 550s

I started the week on rather an unglamorous note: grocery shopping. Wearing the New Balance 550s, I paired them with my go-to errand running outfit: Beyoncé Renaissance cap, white tank from Gap, Aritzia button-up, Lululemon leggings and crew socks.

As someone who needs orthotics (I swear I’m not 85 years old!), I was pleasantly surprised by the arch support. The New Balances were super comfy and gave me a literal spring in my step. Bonus: I felt very Hailey Bieber-coded while wearing them and even spotted a teen eyeing my sneakers with approval.

Pros: You can survive a full day of walking in NYC in these and that’s saying something.
Cons: Nothing about the style felt…