The people who work at Fila know what you call its massively popular sneaker, the Disruptor 2—the gargantuan, verging-on-platform shoe that gobbles up feet, has a sole with chainsaw-like teeth, and loudly announces its presence to passerby. Shoes like Fila’s Disruptor 2, the Balenciaga Triple S, and New Balance 990v4—they’re ugly. “We certainly wouldn't put that on a shoebox,” says Mark Eggert, Fila’s SVP of footwear design and advanced concepts. “There is no doubt internally that other phrase has come up. But we'd prefer to stick with the ‘chunky trainer’ idea.” Ugly, chunky, whatever you call them—the trend has distorted all of our sneakers over the past year. And now, it’s opened up a lane for Fila and its Disruptor 2 to crash the party.

So why has the shoe taken off? ”You can't walk 100 yards without seeing a few people wearing it,” Eggert says; walking around my office in lower Manhattan, I have to agree. There is no trend in sneakers bigger than ugly, but, typically, these big-ass shoes have big-ass prices to go along with them. Customers after the Triple S, the genesis of the ugly sneaker wave, need to shell out $895 to participate in this trend. And while the Disruptor 2 could go toe-for-toe with the Balenciaga Triple S in terms of sheer size—a heavyweight matchup if we’ve ever seen one—at $60, it’s less than a tenth of the price.

This is one of the Disruptor 2’s chief advantages. As part of its reintroduction (the brand never actually pulled the Disruptor 2 from all stores, just some in favor of new ones) Fila installed the Disruptor 2 at stores like Urban Outfitters, where the brand could attract younger customers. “This is the first time they're being introduced to the brand,” Eggert says of Fila’s newfound teenaged customer base. While most high schoolers don’t usually have a grand to drop on designer shoes, they do have access to malls—and maybe an allowance that makes spending $60 on shoes possible. The Disruptor 2 is the cheapest ticket of entry into the world of ugly sneakers. “Presenting a great value proposition has always been part of what we've brought to the table,” Eggert says.

So far, it’s working. In a year that feels like it’s been dominated by the latest releases from massive players like Nike and Adidas, Fila and the Disruptor 2 were able to crack the firmament. Footwear News called the Disruptor 2 its Shoe of the Year, an award previously given to sneakers designed by Virgil Abloh, Rihanna, and Kanye West. Lyst, a platform that aggregates retailers, ranked the Disruptor 2 as the second-most-popular shoe over the summer. NPD analyst Matt Powell told me that sales data backed up the claim the Disruptor 2 was a hot shoe, but added that “distribution is limited.”

Now that Fila’s checked 2018’s most important box and created a hit sneaker, the brand is trying to get as much burn out of this newfound clout as it can. Fila might be much smaller than Nike and Adidas (In 2017, Nike’s global revenues were $34.4 billion, Adidas’s $34.4 billion, and Fila’s $2.5 billion), but Eggert spins this as a positive. “Our whole infrastructure has been built to where we're able to react quickly to turn things around and get this thing going and get the follow-ons going as well,” he says. That’s right: the original white-navy-red Disruptor 2 is just the first phase in what the Fila hopes will be a full-blown resurgence.

When Fila first started pushing the shoe over the past year, the team wasn’t entirely sold on this whole “ugly” trend, but that changed rapidly. “We didn't understand when the discussions began how far this trend and shoe was going to go,” he says. But, Eggert adds, “There's certainly been a ‘Why are we doing this again?’ to ‘Oh my God, we better be doing this as quickly as we can’ transition.” As soon as the shoe caught fire, Fila looked for ways to capitalize on its success with new colorways, and different materials like suede and patent leather. Soon, the brand will start rolling out other shoes from its archives that are similarly, uh, chunky.

So while there have been plenty of limited-edition, scorching hot, must-have sneakers released in 2018 by brands and bigshot designers alike, the Fila Disruptor 2 might be the most important one of all. Because the shoe’s not just something clout-chasing hypebeasts organize an outfit around—it’s a sneaker chunky enough to support a brand’s wildest aspirations.

Fila Disruptor 2 Fila Disruptor 2 $65 Fila Buy Now

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