The PUMA Suede has spent nearly six decades resisting reinvention, which makes a set of hiking hooks look surprisingly disruptive. The new PUMA Suede Hike keeps the low, familiar 1968 profile but equips it with metal speed hooks, outdoor-style laces, and a more aggressive gum-rubber sole.

The upper remains predominantly cow leather, preserving the texture that made the original a streetwear staple. Instead of turning it into a technical trail shoe, PUMA layers mountaineering cues onto the lifestyle platform: metal hardware rises above the eyestay, contrasting rope laces add visual depth, and the outsole gains a chunkier tread. The Wild Fern upper and gum sole reinforce the retro-hiker mood without disguising the Suede underneath.

That distinction matters. This is not a waterproof trekking shoe or a performance replacement for modern hiking footwear; it is a design exercise that borrows the visual grammar of old approach shoes. In that sense it sits closer to the long tradition of city-ready trail hybrids than to PUMA’s performance running line.

The Suede Hike is a unisex release priced at $130. PUMA’s U.S. launch calendar lists October 1 as the on-sale date, with the Wild Fern-Gum color currently marked coming soon through PUMA.