The best-selling men’s sneaker on Novelship this month is a $40 unbranded foam slide.
The Yeezy YZY YS-01 ‘Black’ has climbed steadily since July — #5, then #4, now #1 — and its ‘Cream’ sibling arrives at #3. Two slides in the top three. Add the Mind 001 recovery mule at #5 and ASICS’ new sneaker-sandal at #9, and four of the ten best-selling men’s shoes this month barely qualify as shoes.
Underneath that, the month’s other headline: the adidas Samba OG is back at #2, its highest position all year, after August marked its first absence since this series began. Meanwhile Travis Scott’s ‘Sail Tropical Pink’ drops off entirely after three straight months at #1, and the Killshot 2’s five-month run ends.
Two streaks broken, one streak restarted, and a chart-topping slide. Here’s the ten men’s sneakers dominating Novelship this September.
1. Yeezy YZY YS-01 'Black'
KKey Features: Kanye West’s post-adidas slide, built from a single piece of injected EVA foam with no upper, no lining, no straps and no visible branding of any kind. Unibody construction — sole and upper flow as one continuous form. A true triple-black finish, noticeably darker than the adidas Yeezy Slide ‘Onyx’ that preceded it. Retail $40, sold direct through yeezy.com.
Why It’s Trending: Third month on the chart and its first at #1, after entering at #5 in July and climbing to #4 in August. The logic is hard to argue with: at $40 it costs under half what an adidas-era Yeezy Slide fetches on the aftermarket, and with the last of adidas’s Yeezy inventory now cleared, this is the only way to buy the silhouette new. The unbranded, sculptural minimalism also puts it in the same lane as the Mind 001 further down this list — quiet, shapeless, and deliberately anonymous.
2. adidas Samba OG 'White Black Gum'
Key Features: The platonic Samba — black leather 3-Stripes over a white leather upper, sitting on a gum sole. Low-profile silhouette, pull-tab heel, wraparound suede T-toe overlay. The specifications haven’t changed meaningfully in decades. Style code B75806.
Why It’s Trending: It’s back, and higher than it’s ever been. The Samba OG appeared on every men’s top ten from February through July, missed August entirely, and returns in September at #2 — its best position of the year, beating the #3 it held in March. Three years into its lifestyle takeover, White Black Gum remains the safest single-shoe purchase in men’s fashion: it pairs with anything, works in any season, and holds resale value where hyped colorways cool off. August looks less like a decline than a pause.
3. Yeezy YZY YS-01 'Cream'
Key Features: The tonal counterpart to the black pair, and the same single-piece injected EVA construction. A warm off-white finish that Yeezy internally shipped under the name “Silver Green” before rebranding it as Cream on shipping notifications. The closest adidas-era analog would be the Yeezy Slide ‘Bone’, though the Cream reads warmer and slightly more textured. Same $40 retail, same direct-only distribution.
Why It’s Trending: Straight in at #3 in its first month, putting both YS-01 colorways in the top three. Where the Black disappears into an outfit, the Cream stands out just enough to become part of it — which is why it’s pulling a different buyer. It pairs particularly well with the earth-tone and neutral palettes that have dominated men’s style this year, and it’s the more photogenic of the two by some margin.
4. Nike Ja 3 'Valentine's Day'
Key Features: Ja Morant’s third signature in its most photographed colorway. A Pink Foam mesh upper carries Dark Hyper Pink TPU scratch overlays pulled from Ja’s own design notebook, with a Sundial gold Swoosh outline and matching laces. Underneath sits the full-length Hybrid ZoomX foam that made the Ja 3 the value benchmark of signature basketball footwear. The translucent pink outsole completes the theme. Style codes HF2793-601 / HF2794-601, $125 retail.
Why It’s Trending: Back after two months away. The Valentine’s Day pair ran April through June, sat out July and August, and returns in September — which makes it the most persistent single Ja 3 colorway of the year. It remains the one that crosses over into lifestyle rotation most easily: themed without being kitschy, and bold enough to anchor a fit without looking like a costume.
5. Nike Mind 001 'Light Smoke Grey'
Key Features: The recovery mule from Nike’s Mind Science Department. The footbed houses 22 independently moving sensory nodes designed as tactile pressure points, moving like pistons and gimbals to deliver constant ground feedback. Bio-based foam shell, slip-on construction, minimal branding. The light grey finish shows off the texture of the mould far more clearly than the black does. Style code HQ4307-003.
Why It’s Trending: Second consecutive month, up two places from August. This colorway sat at #2 back in February, vanished for five months, and returned in August alongside the black pair — and it’s the one that’s held. The grey is the harder of the two to wear, but it’s also the one that actually looks like designed equipment rather than a plain slide, which is the whole appeal of the Mind line.
6. Dragon Ball Z x Converse Chuck 70 'Shenron'
Key Features: The premium centrepiece of Converse’s seven-shoe Dragon Ball Z capsule, and the only pair in it built on the Chuck 70 rather than the standard All Star. A black leather upper carries full-colour graphics of Shenron, the wish-granting eternal dragon, with custom fiery leather ankle patches. The classic rubber outsole is reworked with lightning bolt graphics, and the shoe adds co-branded sockliners and license plates on the heels. Chuck 70 construction throughout: higher rubber foxing, cushioned OrthoLite insole, more substantial rubber toe cap. Officially Black/Cyber Yellow. Style code A21841C
Why It’s Trending: Released 23 July in North America and Greater China, with the global drop following on 11 August — which puts September as its first full month of wide availability. The wider capsule covered Goku, Vegeta, Frieza, Cell, Majin Buu and Fusion at $80 and below, but the Shenron is the only one on the premium Chuck 70 platform, and it’s the pair that’s moved. Anime collaborations live or die on whether the graphic is worth wearing; a full-length dragon across black leather clears that bar comfortably.
7. Nike Ja 3 'Kool Aid'
Key Features: The moodier sibling of the Aura Coffee release, executed in Core Black tumbled leather with the same off-white 3-Stripes, deco stitching, suede T-toe overlay, and gold-tone eyelets. Same chunky lugged Freizeit sole, same premium construction, same SFTM side branding.
Why It’s Trending: Carrying over from June’s list, where it earned its spot as the versatile Freizeit pick between the two SFTM colorways. Core Black works with almost any wardrobe and doesn’t need seasonal accommodation, and Novelship sales in July reflect that a lot of buyers who couldn’t decide between the two ended up choosing black. The dressier, chunky-sole silhouette also fits perfectly into the “dress up your sneakers” trend that’s dominated men’s fashion this year.
8. Nike Zoom Kobe 5 Protro 'Dodgers'
Key Features: Nike Basketball’s continuation of Kobe Bryant’s bond with Los Angeles, following the Kobe 6 ‘Dodgers’ from 2025. Rush Blue covers the upper front to back, with a snakeskin-like texture around the support panels and eyestays. The standout detail sits at the heel: red baseball-seam stitching, replicating the stitching on a ball. A Wolf Grey Swoosh with white edging breaks up the blue, the white Kobe sheath logo sits on the tongue, and Kobe’s 8 and 24 appear on the inner tongues. Kobe branding on the outsole, his signature on the heel. Style code IO6256-400, $190 retail, released 15 August 2026.
Why It’s Trending: The Protro programme has been running for the better part of a decade, and the Dodgers concept is now on its second silhouette. It works because the reference is genuinely personal — Bryant was given first-pitch honours at Dodger Stadium, and the shirt-to-shoe crossover isn’t manufactured. Worth knowing: early samples showed Kobe photo insoles, but the retail pair ships with a clean blue insole and Kobe branding instead.
9. ASICS GT-2160 Breeze 'Brown Storm / Black Coffee'
KKey Features: Not a running shoe — a sneaker-sandal. ASICS has taken the GT-2160, its Y2K-revival heritage trainer, and cut away the underlays and heel panels for ventilation, turning it into what the brand calls a tech-credible sandal. The sleek wavy forefoot sculpting that defines the GT-2160 stays intact, as does the segmented midsole structure and GEL technology inserts that reference ASICS running shoes of the early 2010s. Executed in a deep earth-tone Brown Storm / Black Coffee. Style code 1203A951-200, $130 retail.
Why It’s Trending: It’s the third open silhouette on this list, and the most technically interesting. The GT-2160 has been ASICS’ most collaborated-on lifestyle silhouette of the last two years — Kith, Gallery Dept. and others have all had a go — and stripping it into a sandal while keeping the segmented midsole and visible GEL is a genuinely unusual move. The brown-on-brown palette also lands squarely in the earth-tone direction that’s driven ASICS sales all year.
10. MIHARA YASUHIRO Maison Hank OG Sole Canvas Low 'Black White'
Key Features: The second Maison Mihara Yasuhiro model to make this chart in two months, and a different silhouette from August’s Peterson. The Hank runs a black canvas upper with white contrast detailing on the label’s signature hand-molded OG sole — a sculptural foam rubber unit developed from a clay prototype, which is why it reads warped and organic rather than machine-finished. No two pairs are identical. Style code A05FW702-BLK.
Why It’s Trending: August’s entry could have been a one-month spike. A second appearance with a different model is a brand-level signal rather than a product one — buyers are coming for Maison Mihara Yasuhiro, not for one shoe. The Tokyo label, founded in 1997 and built on deconstructing classic Americana silhouettes, is the only non-Nike/adidas/Jordan/ASICS name to appear on this chart all year. The black-and-white canvas is also the more wearable of its two entries, which probably explains the crossover.
Conclusion
September is the month men’s footwear stopped trying to look like footwear. A $40 unbranded slide at #1, its cream sibling at #3, a neuroscience-branded recovery mule at #5, and a heritage runner with its heel cut off at #9. Four of the ten best-sellers are slip-on or open silhouettes, and none of them need laces.
Against that, the Samba OG’s return at #2 reads almost like a correction — the most conventional shoe in men’s fashion reclaiming its place one month after its first-ever absence from this chart. Two long streaks ended this month, Travis Scott’s three months at #1 and the Killshot 2’s five-month run, and what replaced them is stranger than what left.
FAQ's
No. It’s a sandal built on the GT-2160 heritage trainer. ASICS cut away the underlays and heel panels for ventilation while keeping the silhouette’s wavy forefoot sculpting, segmented midsole and GEL inserts. Think of it as the GT-2160 opened up for warm weather rather than a shoe you’d run in.
Red stitching at the heel replicating the seams on a baseball — the detail that carried over from the Kobe 6 ‘Dodgers’ of 2025 and the clearest reference to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the design. Kobe’s 8 and 24 also appear on the inner tongues.
They’re deliberately mismatched: the left runs Hyper Pink, the right Lemon Venom yellow, representing Pink Lemonade and Lemon Lime. Ja Morant has said the concept came from his mother — “Ma Dukes spoke on this one.”
The midsole is hand-molded from a clay prototype rather than machine-formed, which gives it an intentionally warped, organic profile. It’s the label’s signature construction and the reason the silhouette reads as sculptural rather than conventional.
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