The first time I heard about approach shoes, my immediate thought was: huh? Like, uh…hiking shoes? So after a few unsatisfying minutes of scrolling through TikTok looking for an answer, I called a good buddy of mine, Kermit. (His real name's Kevin. Don't ask.) Kermit told me that approach shoes are called precisely that because you wear them when you're about to approach a cliff or a crag or something or other, before switching to your proper climbing shoes once you get there. It sounded niche. Hyper-specific, even. The kinda thing that should stay tucked away in climbing forums. And yet, here we are. Because somewhere along the way, approach shoes stopped being just the thing you wear to get from A to B on a mountain, and started making a lot of sense in the city. Part of that comes down to how we wear clothes now. “People want things that work across different parts of the day,” says Jeroen Meijer, senior marketing manager at Keen. “Approach shoes are functional, comfortable, and versatile, but they also have a clear design identity.”