Salomon’s Xt-6 has become one of the sportswear company's most popular sneakers. The Xt-6 just had it all: quality specs in a sleek package stylish enough to function as fashion but hardy enough to take the trails.
But for 2024, Salomon is no longer making the Xt-6 its main focus. Instead, it's zeroing in on the Speedcross 3, a recently relaunched staple shoe that's about to become Salomon's next big sneaker — or so Salomon hopes.
Core to Salomon's Speedcross 3 push is a revival of the OG “Sulphur” colorway that released in 2011, all bright yellow-green upper with red and black accents and available online for $140.
Compared to the Xt-6, the Speedcross 3 is chunkier, louder, stranger. It's not necessarily the obvious choice to step up to the plate as Salomon's star sneaker but consumers acclimated to the Xt-6's technical quirk could very easy to see the Speedcross 3’s obvious streetwear appeal.
Salomon currently offers six iterations of the Speedcross shoe, originally designed as a super technical mountain running shoe, but the Speedcross 3 stands out in the lineup.
It has similar specs to the other Speedcross sneakers, like the grippy sole and tough, Quicklaced upper, but the Speedcross 3 is maybe the most stylish. It's not as tech-y as the newer models and not as retro as the classics, giving it crossover appeal.
“Pushing mountain racing boundaries meant a flyweight product that was quick and agile, even on the most difficult sloped terrain," Speedcross designer Reglan G Brewer once explained. "Early on, I started calling the project ‘SpeedCross’ as it both respected the trail signature ‘X’ and reflected the ambitious racing identity of the product.”
And while the Speedcross was born for mountain racing, the Speedcross 3 was the first offspring to boost that utility with some curb appeal. It’s a trail shoe right down to its foam sole.
“The [original] Speedcross was a very underground product, which appealed to elite athletes and designers for being raw, without any whimsical design," Warren Bosomworth, former Salomon footwear designer, said in an oral history of the sneaker. "It was pure performance. It was a tough shoe to sell. Being lightweight, grippy, and protective was not enough.”
Now that sneaker culture has evolved lightyears beyond where it was in 2008, when Salomon released the original Speedcross, it's ready for something that's pure performance. These days, it's not enough for sneakers to be loud — they have to be useful, too.
