DJ COMMUNITY

Childish Gambino Returned to the Stage in Custom Bottega Veneta Sneakers Story by Tres Dean Nov 25 GQ editors independently select all products featured on GQ. However, when you buy something throug…

Childish Gambino Returned to the Stage in Custom Bottega Veneta Sneakers

Story by Tres Dean

Nov 25

GQ editors independently select all products featured on GQ. However, when you buy something through our retail links, Condé Nast may earn an affiliate commission.

After a year of relative silence, Childish Gambino—a.k.a.Donald Glover returned to the stage this weekend to headline Tyler, the Creator’s Camp Flog Gnaw festival in Los Angeles. Gambino ran through a madcap greatest-hits setlist, sprinting through early-2010s college party classics like “Freaks & Geeks” and “Bonfire” and more recent heaters alike, frequently cutting songs off halfway through to hop to the next one. “WE ONLY HAVE AN HOUR!” was his constant refrain, which somehow only got funnier every time he repeated it.

Halfway through the set, Glover explained that the abrupt cancellation of his world tour in 2024 was due to a stroke, which in turn led to the discovery of a hole in his heart and multiple surgeries to get his health back on track. You never would’ve known what he’d been through based on his performance, however. Gambino was in fine form, looking fit as hell and dripping in a boxy leather jacket, perforated tank top, billowy black trousers, and a thick mustache that called to mind Freddie Mercury at Live Aid. He looked great, he sounded great, and as he danced across the stage, he appeared to be literally glowing in the spotlight. There was a reason for that: his sneakers.

Childish Gambino Returned to the Stage in Custom Bottega Veneta Sneakers© Katie Flores/Getty Images

Gambino’s glitzy kicks took the crown for best footwear of the weekend—a stiff competition, given he was up against Malice spitting classic Clipse verses in Timbs and Tyler himself in his signature Le Fleur x Converse kicks. He sported a customized pair of Bottega Veneta’s Orbit Flash shoes, the house’s entry in the hypercompetitive world of designer torpedo sneakers.

Traditionally, the Orbit Flash is a suede sneaker with crisscrossed paneling, which the house uses to either add texture on monotone makeups or play with color blocking on multihued versions. Gambino swerved with a custom pair in black. The base layer of the silhouette appeared to be a black leather, while the overlaid black paneling was studded in customized reflective studs, which appeared to be either rhinestones or Swarovski crystals. Crisp white laces and a white sole to match provided some extra pop as the stage lights danced off of Gambino’s kicks the entire show.

Over the last few years, Glover has teased the end of the Childish Gambino era—his 2024 album Bando Stone & the New World was meant to be his final project released under the moniker. If Flog Gnaw was the beginning of the end, Gambino is going out with a bang. Still, when sharing the story of his stroke, he referred to an adage he stuck by during the recovery process: Everybody has two lives, and the second life begins when you realize that you only have one. Whatever the next life holds for Childish Gambino, it’s off to an appropriately showstopping start.