In my medium-time tenure as a menswear writer, I have never spent as much time thinking about Irish actor Colin Farrell’s footwear choices as I have in the year 2024. Perhaps it’s a residual reaction to Hollywood’s Big Irish Wave, of which Farrell is a flag-bearing forefather. (This year alone, his fellow countrymen Barry Keoghan, Cillian Murphy, and Paul Mescal have all appeared on the cover of GQ.) Or maybe it’s because the jury is still out on what kinds of shoes dudes ought to be wearing these days, and the discourse around sneakers—specifically Nikes—is especially contentious.
And few Nikes are as divisive as the omnipresent, post-hype Panda Dunk—which Farrell wore, to a somewhat surprising effect, while arriving at New York City’s JFK International Airport on Thursday.
An inadvertent foil to singer Shawn Mendes’s dialed-in airport ensemble from earlier this week, the actor looked lax in a shiny black bomber jacket layered over a low-slung black tank top, with flared gray Ralph Lauren sweatpants whose hems pooled around his black-and-white Nike Dunk Highs. He accessorized—thank heavens—with one of his little headbands, as well as a timeworn honey-brown leather messenger bag slung over his shoulder.
