Author: Sneaker Blogger

There’s a version of Tomorrowland that ends when the last set does — the grounds emptied, the stages struck, the weekend folded into memory. And then there’s the version the festival has spent fifteen years building in the other direction: out past the gates, into fragrances and homeware and, now, footwear. The WR1 is the festival’s first-ever sneaker, unveiled at Tomorrowland Belgium 2026 ahead of a global release this September. A sculptural, nature-referencing runner — its flowing lines and layered sole drawn from the geometry of a dragonfly’s wing and the patterns inside a mushroom’s gills — it’s pitched less as merch than as something you carry with you long after the music stops. Which is a fitting brief for the three artists chosen to front it, all of whom spend their lives moving between worlds and trying to leave something behind in each one.For Lost Frequencies, the collaboration lands close to home. Felix De Laet has spent the better part of a decade at the top of melodic dance, and he grew up in Belgium knowing the festival long before he ever played it. “Tomorrowland has always felt very close to home for me,” he says — which is part of why its first step into footwear “feels really special,” especially watching a brand he’s close to push beyond the festival itself. His days rarely repeat: studio one morning, an unfamiliar city the next, a crowd of thousands by night. He traces that restlessness straight into the music, drawn to the contrast “between something emotional and intimate and something that can suddenly feel huge on a dancefloor.” Longevity, he reckons, is mostly curiosity — constant digging, new edits, unreleased tests, no two sets ever quite alike. Ask what should be playing the first time you lace up a pair and he doesn’t hesitate: “Live It All,” a track built to move to that keeps an emotional undertow, “a good soundtrack for putting on a new pair of shoes and heading out with no real idea where the night is going to take you.”Miss Monique arrives at it with a different kind of reach. Long before touring filled her calendar, the Ukrainian DJ built a global following through her Mind Games and MiMo Weekly series — sets that traveled through screens to people she’d never met. “For a long time, I was playing for people through a screen, sometimes without even realizing how far the music was travelling,” she says. When she finally started meeting those listeners in the flesh, the realization arrived with some weight: the connection had already been there, long before they ever shared a dancefloor. Nearly 15 years in, that still shapes how she plays. A few hundred people in a club, thousands at a festival, or someone watching from the other side of the world — she wants all of it to feel personal. “The strongest connection comes when people feel that we’re sharing the moment together,” she says, “rather than me simply playing music for them.”And then there’s NOVAH, who represents the collaboration’s newest chapter and knows exactly what that means. “Everything has been moving so quickly over the last few years,” she says of a rise that’s carried her to a Tomorrowland project in remarkably short order — “another milestone in that journey.” The turning point came this summer, when she played the Tomorrowland Mainstage for the first time, a moment that made her “realise how far this project has come and how much further I still want to take it.” Her life runs at exactly the pace the WR1 was designed for — “constantly moving between airports, cities, studios and clubs” — and that momentum shows up in music she calls high-energy, emotional and always moving forward. Her pick for a first step in the sneaker is “Rave Never Ends”: “It has that instant energy that makes you want to move.”The sneaker is something you carry with you long after the festival ends. What’s a piece of the festival — a feeling or a memory — that stays with you between shows?Lost Frequencies: For me, it’s that moment when a crowd completely connects with a song. You can play the same track in so many countries, but every crowd gives it a different energy. Sometimes I stop thinking about what I’m doing and just look around and take it all in. That feeling of thousands of people being completely present together is something I definitely carry with me after the show.Miss Monique: What stays with me most is the feeling people give me. Every festival has its own energy, its own atmosphere, and there are moments during a set that stay in my mind long after I leave the stage. But it’s also everything around it — the location, the production, the attention to detail, the way it all comes together. I travel and play so much, yet every festival still leaves a completely different impression. Those emotions and memories are what I carry to the next show.NOVAH: That feeling of thousands of people completely losing themselves in the same moment always stays with me. It’s something I take back into the studio every time.The three of you come from different sounds and different backgrounds. Connected together like this, what do you find you have in common as artists?Lost Frequencies: Even if our music sounds different, we’re all trying to create a feeling — genre becomes less important when you look at it that way. We all want to make something people can connect to, remember, and make their own. That’s one of the nicest things about music: you can come from completely different places and still understand each other through it.Miss Monique: What connects us is much bigger than a genre or a sound. We all have our own musical identity and very different backgrounds, but we share the same passion for creating something people can genuinely feel. That’s what I love about Tomorrowland — it’s always been a place where completely different artists, sounds and people can come together and still feel part of the same world. Three different identities, connected by the same love for music and the culture around it.NOVAH: We all have our own sound, but we share the same obsession with creating a real connection with people. At the end of the day, we all want to make people feel something.Movement, connection and self-expression are at the heart of this campaign. Which of the three feels most central to how you make music, and why?Lost Frequencies: Connection, for sure. I can make something alone in a studio that starts from a very personal feeling, and a few months later I’m on the other side of the world watching a crowd sing it back to me. That transformation is still crazy to me. Music can connect people who don’t speak the same language or come from the same place — that’s a big part of why I love making it.Miss Monique: It’s difficult to choose just one, because all three are at the heart of making music. Movement gives music its energy, connection is what makes it meaningful when you share it, and self-expression is what makes it truly yours. When I’m creating, I want to express something that feels true to me, but I also imagine how it will make people feel and how we’ll experience that moment together on the dancefloor. I couldn’t separate one from the others.NOVAH: Self-expression, for sure. Music is where I can be completely myself without having to explain it.The sneaker draws its design from nature. Where do you look for inspiration outside of music when you’re creating?Lost Frequencies: Travel is probably one of my biggest sources of inspiration outside of music. I’m lucky to constantly see new places, landscapes, architecture and cultures, and even when I’m not consciously looking for it, you absorb a lot. Sometimes it’s a landscape, sometimes the atmosphere of a city, or just a small moment during a trip — those things stay in my head and eventually find their way into the mood of something I’m making.Miss Monique: One of my biggest sources has always been the people who listen to my music — the reactions I can see in front of me, and the messages I get from people all around the world. At the same time, I’ve learned that inspiration often comes when I step away from music: slowing down, travelling, spending time in nature, going cycling. Very often that’s when new ideas and emotions come naturally, and I can bring them back into the music.NOVAH: Fashion, people and the energy of different cities inspire me a lot. Sometimes one image, one outfit or one atmosphere can already trigger an entire idea.Style and sound tend to travel together for artists. How much thought do you put into what you wear on stage versus off it, and does one influence the other?Lost Frequencies: I think about it, but I never want it to feel like I’m putting on a costume to go on stage. What I wear to perform is usually an extension of what I’d wear in everyday life, just sometimes pushed a little further. Comfort is really important because I move a lot when I play. Style and music work in a similar way for me — I like things that have character but still feel natural and effortless.Miss Monique: I’ve always cared about how I look, on and off stage, but I don’t overthink it. After almost 15 years of performing, I’ve learned how much what you wear can affect the way you feel on stage. I’ve had looks I liked visually but didn’t feel completely like myself in once I started performing. So now I look for balance: something that represents my style, but comfort is just as important. When I feel like myself, it gives me an extra sense of confidence — and that naturally comes through in how I perform.NOVAH: On stage I definitely think about how an outfit fits the energy and the world around the music. Off stage I’m more relaxed, but both are still very much an extension of who I am.The Tomorrowland WR1 sneaker is available now via the official online store.