Other luxury sneakers get all the hype but Gucci's Ace sneaker is a humble workhorse. The Ace is one of the many perfectly plain premium shoes that remain a perennial best-seller, very much deserving of the victory lap that Gucci just gave it.
Prior to Summer 2023, the Gucci Ace was almost exclusively offered as a white low-top fitted with a Gucci house motif — typically the bee — atop a tricolor Gucci Web and a snakeskin-patterned heel.
Simple, subtle, and low-key, the Gucci Ace innately epitomized widespread appeal since their release in 2016.
But now there's now a new Ace in town and, though it looks nearly identical (and is currently only available on Gucci's web store for $870), there are a few key improvements in service of the same basic package (if it ain't broke...).
For one, the bee is gone, leaving a bare Gucci Web on the side. The snakeskin pattern has been traded for debossed "crocodile" on the heel and, perhaps most crucially, Gucci swapped the Ace's sole out for a Margom-style replacement.
Oh, and there's a little metal lace dubrae that says "ACE," in case you weren't certain what the shoes were called.
I find the Gucci Ace's incredibly normalcy oddly appealing.
Like the Nike Air Force 1 and adidas Samba sneakers, the Gucci Ace is a versatile white low-top sneaker appropriate for nearly any season or wardrobe; they're so inoffensively normal as to be almost invisible.
Gucci's Ace sneakers are perfect in that way. There is possibly no luxury sneaker better at hitting that sweet spot between flexibility and flex-worthy, which is what makes it so alluring for so many people.
Pre-COVID 19 Pandemic, for instance, the Gucci Ace was one of the world's singularly most desirable shoes, full stop.
Slightly heightened normalcy is the goal, a shoe that says something without really saying anything. I find that delicate balance fascinating.
If you want more personality, you can scuff some of Gucci's Horsebit loafers, collaborative Vans sneakers, or its chunkier in-line offerings.
But the Gucci Ace, unmarked and crisp, is perfect in its plainness. And, like how nature's perfection continues unfolding through evolution, so too does the Gucci Ace reveal its flawlessness through quiet development.
Gucci's new Ace ain't anything fancy and, trust me, that's the point.
