Bite-sized style news to know what’s happening in menswear this May
Everything you need to know that's happening in menswear
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WELCOME TO ‘Bite-sized style news’, a monthly dispatch where we discuss the news, rumours and conversations that are dominating the men’s style discourse, and therefore, our Esquire water cooler chitchat.
Scroll on for this month’s edition
Let’s get it on with Loewe and ON Sneakers
Loewe and ON footwear have been collaborating on making sick sneakers (actual running shoes, but also: aesthetic) since 2023. However, the new LightSpray Cloudmonster will be the first shoe from the partnership to arrive under new creative directors Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, who took over the house in 2025 from Jonathan Anderson. As opening statements go, it is a darned good one.
The LightSpray Cloudmonster is built around On’s LightSpray technology: a seamless filament upper sprayed in a single step in approximately three minutes, with no traditional layering or reinforcements.
The result is an all-white laceless shoe that moves with the foot rather than around it, sitting on On’s Cloudmonster Hyper midsole with Helion HF cushioning.
Each shoe comes with three LightSpray socks in Fluo Yellow, Fluo Green, and Teal, designed as functional components rather than accessories, shifting the shoe’s appearance depending on the pairing.
Alongside it, the Cloudsolo returns in new bicolour pairings and exclusive colourways including Teal, Sand, and Burgundy. The Cloudtilt Hi arrives as a new addition in a hi-top silhouette, available in tricolour combinations.
The LightSpray Cloudmonster is exclusive to On and Loewe stores.
Words Benjamen Judd
An optical Odyssey with Akoni
Good year to be a fan of Greek mythology. reek mythology with Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey adaptation releasing in cinemas this July. But more importantly, the timing of Akoni’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection, for reasons you’ll soon understand.
The Swiss eyewear brand has always mined antiquity for its naming conventions, but collection XI leans into the reference more deliberately than most.
The collection splits across two directions. Performance-driven frames – Astria, Pegasus II, and Atlantis – pull from aerodynamic geometry and speed, their engineered contours and structural volumes doing the work that most eyewear leaves to ornamentation. Astria’s double rims and integrated side shields reference aviation design; Atlantis translates oceanic forms into layered, sculptural acetate; Pegasus II introduces a metal side shield that reads differently from the front than the side.
The second stream is more architectural. Jura’s double-bridge construction and knurled temples have a jewel-like depth; Argo goes wider, its sculpted metal bridge and full-metal temples carrying a confidence that suits the mythological namesake. Proteus, crafted in lightweight titanium with pressed-line patterning, is the most refined of the group.
While the five-year anniversary Eris frames, individually numbered, presented in a watchmaker-inspired collector’s box might be the obvious collector’s piece, our eyes are on the Pegasus II.
Words Benjamen Judd
Song For The Mute drops SFTM x adidas 007
It’s the month for acquiring some decent kicks! This time, there’s an extended wardrobe to add to cart, too.
The adidas Originals collaborations have become a reliable measure of where Australian fashion sits globally, and cult Sydney-based label Song for the Mute has been one of the more consistent performers in that conversation. This is their seventh chapter together.
ADI007 takes childhood uniform dressing as its starting point: hand-me-downs, scuffed school shoes, clothes that are pulled from the floordrobe and layered for more for the pleasure of it than the practicality. The two footwear pieces translate that directly. The Tokyo is a low-profile gym shoe in nylon and mesh with paint-splattered suede overlays and a deliberately scuffed outsole. The Samba LX Freizeit goes the other direction – full-grain leather, structured, built for corridors.
Props to the campaign, too, that looks like old school photographs that look like they’ve been found in a discarded album of an estate sale.
SFTM exclusive pre-release on Friday, 8 May at 11am AEST. Global release 15 May.
Words Benjamen Judd
ASICS x Earls is back with a slick new Gel Cumulus 16
The ASICS SportStyle collaborations have been building momentum, and Earls Collection, the Sydney label founded by former NRL player Lewi Brown, has become one of the more compelling repeat partners. Their first drop, a GT2160, sold out in 2024.
The second is a GEL-CUMULUS 16, and the design detail is worth noting. The insoles recreate the carpet of Brown’s childhood home in Christchurch. The aged texture of the SILKYWRAP stripes references his mother’s years of work. Brown overlays reference family. It is, in other words, a shoe built almost entirely from autobiography (the shoebox recreates the family home too). There’s also a football boot, because naturally.
Check the dates on your calendars because you will be able to grab a pair on 21 May at ASICS.com, Earls online and the Earls store in Paddington.
Words Benjamen Judd
Louis Vuitton is on the Chase
The revival of Chatswood Chase as a luxury precinct has truly locked in. Dior, Australian jewellers Musson, Bvlgari and Celine have all stamped their logos on front doors. The latest arrival may be the grandest – Louis Vuitton.
The centre has spent the past few years repositioning itself as one of Sydney’s premium retail destinations (and a good excuse to escape the city).
120 metres of textured cladding wraps the building, with animated LV signatures and a video screen embedded. The Maison has done this kind of architectural statement before at its flagship stores but for this new boutique, three Australian artists, Estelle Asmodelle, Amy Wright and Amy Kim, were chosen to provide artistic counterpoints to the house’s own historic prints.
Two entrances, one for women’s, one for men’s, the latter marked by a timber wall reworking the Damier check. Worth the drive up the Pacific Highway.
Shop 1-026, 345 Victoria Avenue Chatswood
Words Benjamen Judd
All the best-dressed men at the 2026 Met Gala
