Few silhouettes in recent memory have been as swarmed upon as the ballet sneaker. Mainstream by the first quarter of 2025, a seemingly inevitable marriage of athleisure and the balletcore trend, the shoe quickly transformed into a satin twist at Vivaia, a minimalist take by Adidas, a gym rat version by Nike x SKIMS, and a sneakerhead iteration at Sandy Liang x Solomon. Yet perhaps no version is as palpably luxurious as Louis Vuitton’s hand-crafted Sneakerina, a fast It-girl favorite following its launch by the house last spring.
But it’s one thing to know a shoe is made by hand—at Louis Vuitton, all shoes are hand-crafted in France and Italy, with modern technology playing only a supporting role—and another to see it in person. At the Manufacture de Souliers Louis Vuitton, the house's shoebox-shaped Italian factory I visited in March, I learned that more than 200 processes, 70-plus artisans, and hours of handiwork go into each Sneakerina—an eye-wateringly meticulous process known as savoir-faire.
