Season: Fall/Winter 2021
Buy: BEAMS' website (on pre-order)
Editor's Notes: Each time BEAMS and Salomon have met up — four times, thus far — they've dropped something that wholly eschews fashion for function. That isn't to say that the resulting sneakers look bad (they don't), but that every design they drop has ignored trendy colorways or flashy logos in favor of repurposed heritage.
So it goes for this latest team-up, which sees BEAMS granting new life to Salomon's XA PRO 1 GORE-TEX sneaker, a 2001 model ripped from the archives especially for this drop. It's rendered here in gently asymmetric shades of blue — dark on the medial side, light on the lateral — and sports the usual Salomon specifications, like Quicklace and a grippy, EVA-cushioned sole unit in a package that neatly blends old school looks with contemporary tech.
Autumn is always a good time to care about GORE-TEX, since so many drops utilize the weatherproof membrane to great effect. BEAMS knows its way around a technical collab, too, and is no stranger to GORE-TEX-infused kicks.
Is there any retailer in the world better at collabs than BEAMS? Drops like this Salomon one kinda suggest not. Between the killer in-house collections and nifty exclusives (and only the occasional miss), it's no surprise that there's a big Rizzoli book dedicated to all of BEAMS' amazing joint efforts.
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