Of the many, many footwear brands that've collaborated with COMME des GARÇONS, Salomon is a bit of an oddity. Unlike the sportswear giants that join the Japanese fashion brand and its plentiful sub-labels for seasonal team-ups, Salomon is kind of an accidental fashion fave, which makes CdG's wild remixes of its techy trail runners that much more impactful.
The French running brand was adopted by the fashion set years ago, when Boris Bidjan Saberi and Parisian boutique The Broken Arm issued their own disparate takes on its charmingly un-trendy sneakers. But, with GORPcore sweeping through everything from the upper echelons of luxury to the most accessible streetwear stores, Salomon's rugged footwear is en vogue in a major way.
You've got Margiela collabs, co-signs from indie darlings, and general release colorways that sell better than some in-line styles from more famous brands.
All the more welcome are COMME des GARÇONS' Salomon collaborations, which take the latter label's typically technical sneakers into truly adventurous territories.
Fall/Winter 2022, though, is a bit more familiar to those who've been following CdG. We saw platform Salomon sneakers last year and the shoes dropping for Fall/Winter 2022 were teased no less than thrice this year alone.
On hand for this season is CdG's Pulsar Platform sneaker ($490 in black or white), the SR90 ($260 apiece), and, for the heads, the SR901E ($350), which takes the SR90 in a graphic, laceless direction.
Hardly anything you'd actually wanna wear on the trail but, then again, Salomon already makes plenty of shoes that do just that. It's nice to see some stuff free from pure technicality.
They're all winners, as far as I'm concerned, though COMME des GARÇONS' take on the Salomon SR901E gets bonus points for dropping the laces and I appreciate the massive, glistening sole strapped to the Pulsar.
It's not like there's been a dearth of COMME des GARÇONS footwear collabs recently, either: it only just dropped a pair of muted Air Max 97 shoes, while its CDG sub-label issued new Vans (with and without a Pokémon printed on them) and even some new BAPESTAs, because you can't have too much of a good thing.
