Tag Archives: Fashion

Nike launches Air Zoom Hyperslide, pair of slip-ons that heat and massage your feet

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In 2024, Nike and Hyperice got together for a pair of boots that used air compression to massage athletes’ feet. Now, the two stalwarts in their own domains have joined forces again to release Nike Air Zoom Hyperslide – a pair of slides that could easily be the most innovative iteration of recovery slides ever made. Designed to heat and massage your feet after a long day’s work or activity, it uses Hyperice’s recovery technology with Nike Air Zoom cushioning.

The combination makes the slides ultra-comfy to wear after a tiresome day and increasingly relaxing for the feet post-workout. This convenience is made possible with the magnetically connected Hyperslide Pod, which resides in the adjustable, wide coverage midfoot strap of the slide. The pod is removable, but when it’s attached to the slide, it “provides targeted Hyperice heat and vibration massage across the top of the foot,” Nike confirms.

Designer: Nike

The heat therapy and vibration massage help reduce tension and relax the feet after strenuous training, a game of football, or a morning run. The comfort is, however, enhanced by the Air Zoom cushioning spanning the entire length of the footwear. The soft proprietary sole provides responsive comfort for everyday wear, which adds to the primary feature of heat and massage.

The Nike Air Zoom Hyperslide is created in two colors: Black and Beige. Despite the simplicity of the colors, the slides look distinct in their monochromatic finish. The silhouette is smooth and has a high-end construction feel to it, which revolves around the mounting hub for the magnetic pod.

The pod sitting at the top of the foot is the main aspect of the slide’s recovery capability. It is created to provide three levels of targeted heat to each foot, reaching 117 degrees Fahrenheit, or 47 degrees Celsius. The slides also create three levels of vibrations for a 15-minute recovery cycle. The pod is rechargeable and features a USB-C port for fast charging.

The levels of heat and vibration can be customized from the pod on the slides, or via the Hyperice app. For those, like me, who are often confused with the settings, the Air Zoom Hyperslide features onboard indicator lights signalling heat, vibration, or battery level. The slides are designed using feedback from athletes and are now being hailed for their soft cushioning, heat, and vibration working in tandem for post-workout recovery.

If you’re interested, we’ve learned that the Nike Air Zoom Hyperslide will be available globally starting September 29, 2026. The information is not official, but sources suggest the slides created to heat and massage your feet would cost $250.

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adidas x Carnival’s $170 Sneaker Is a Love Letter to Retro Gaming

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Somewhere between digging through a crate of old game cartridges and reaching for a solid pair of running shoes, Bangkok-based streetwear boutique CARNIVAL found its latest idea. The result is the CARNIVAL x adidas Adizero EVO SL “The Grey Console,” and it’s the kind of release that doesn’t need to try very hard to get your attention. It earns it.

The concept is straightforward but well-executed: take the familiar grey shell of a retro gaming console, the kind that sat under your TV in the early 2000s, and translate that visual language onto one of adidas’ most capable modern runners. The grey mesh upper immediately reads like vintage hardware, the color of a Nintendo 64 or an original PlayStation left to age gracefully on a shelf. It’s industrial and a little utilitarian, but it also carries a specific kind of warmth that only nostalgia can give something.

Designers: adidas x Carnival

The real conversation starts in the details. The red, yellow, green, and blue accents scattered across the eyelets and branding aren’t subtle, but they don’t need to be. Those four colors are a shared visual memory for anyone who grew up with a controller in their hands. They’re shorthand for a specific era before streaming services and mobile gaming dominated everything, when plugging in a console felt like an event. CARNIVAL didn’t over-explain the concept. They trusted the design to speak, and it does.

What makes the execution particularly sharp is how disciplined the color placement is. The multicolor hits appear along the eyelets, surfacing only when you look closely. It rewards a second look. The grey mesh has a breathable, open texture that adds depth to the upper without overcomplicating the silhouette. The branding stays restrained, letting the colorway do the storytelling rather than relying on logos to carry the concept. The overall result is a shoe that reads as athletic from across a room and as a considered design object the moment you hold it.

Performance-wise, the shoe isn’t riding purely on its references. The Adizero EVO SL runs on adidas’ LightStrike Pro foam, originally developed for elite race-day running. The midsole delivers a soft, responsive bounce without feeling excessive or gimmicky. A dimensional outsole structure aids weight transfer during a run, and the Continental™ Rubber at the forefoot adds traction that actually holds up. It’s a performance shoe doing exactly what a performance shoe should, just with a story attached to it.

That combination, a technically credible runner dressed in pure nostalgia, is what makes this collaboration feel earned rather than opportunistic. The EVO SL has built a strong collab roster with names like BAPE, Pharrell, and Hartcopy. CARNIVAL slots into that lineup not by screaming the loudest, but by being the most specific. The “Grey Console” concept doesn’t try to appeal to everyone. It targets a very particular person: one who played video games growing up, grew into someone who cares about footwear, and now finds those two worlds overlapping in a way that feels genuinely satisfying.

That specificity is exactly what separates a great collab from a forgettable one. Too many collaborations chase something broadly recognizable but ultimately hollow. The best have a point of view. CARNIVAL has always been good at this. As a Bangkok-based retailer with a loyal following across Southeast Asia, they consistently bring a cultural perspective that doesn’t feel assembled by committee. The Grey Console is personal, and that’s precisely why it lands.

At $170, it’s priced fairly for what it offers. The LightStrike Pro midsole appears in adidas race shoes that cost considerably more. You’re getting actual running capability here, not just a lifestyle silhouette with a compelling colorway bolted on. The shoe dropped on July 22, and sizes disappeared quickly. Whether a wider rollout is coming remains unclear, which makes the limited availability feel oddly appropriate for a concept this specific.

Some releases are designed to be everywhere. Some are designed for the person who immediately understands what they’re looking at. The CARNIVAL x adidas Adizero EVO SL “The Grey Console” is firmly the latter. That’s not a complaint. It’s a compliment.

The post adidas x Carnival’s $170 Sneaker Is a Love Letter to Retro Gaming first appeared on Yanko Design.

PUMA Turns Its Legendary Suede Into a $300 Pikachu Tribute for Pokemon’s 30th Anniversary

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Three hundred dollars for a suede sneaker usually comes with some kind of hook, a designer moniker, a tiny production run, something to point at. PUMA skipped all of that here and just leaned on the Pikachu name, which honestly might be enough on its own. There’s no giant character graphic screaming for attention on this shoe either, which is a little unusual for a collab at this price. Instead the whole thing is built on a few small, well placed details, and that choice tells you a lot about who this release is really for.

That shoe is the PUMA Suede Pikachu, a reworking of the brand’s 1968 silhouette in electric yellow suede for Pokemon’s 30th anniversary. A two tone lightning bolt runs through the Formstrip, a glossy red heel patch nods to Pikachu’s cheeks, and a small enamel charm hangs from the laces instead of some oversized keychain. The outsole is translucent and honey colored, veined with cracked lightning lines like it’s mid charge. It releases July 25 at a pop up in Brooklyn, following a Mewtwo Suede last winter and an Espeon and Umbreon collection back in April. Whether $300 feels fair probably depends on how deep your Pokemon nostalgia runs, and I’ve got more to say on that below.

Designer: PUMA x The Pokemon Company

PUMA ditched the usual flat suede nap for something with a slightly raised, almost fuzzy texture on the upper, and it works better than it has any right to. It doesn’t look like yellow suede pretending to be Pikachu, it looks like the material itself got the memo. That’s a small manufacturing decision most people will never think twice about, but it’s exactly the kind of restraint that separates a thoughtful collab from a licensing cash grab. I’ve seen plenty of character sneakers that just print a face somewhere and call it a day. This one clearly wasn’t approved by someone in a hurry.

The suede shoe’s side stripe has been the same shape for decades, so bending it into a lightning bolt without losing the silhouette’s identity is a genuinely tricky bit of design math, and it’s the real flex of this shoe. They pulled it off by layering a mirrored silver bolt over the classic black stripe, so it catches light instead of just sitting there as a flat graphic. Then there’s the heel patch, a glossy red oval with a small bolt etched into it, which is easily the smartest detail on the whole shoe. It reads as Pikachu’s cheek without anyone having to spell it out, and that kind of subtlety is rare in character collabs that usually default to shouting. Most brands would have put Pikachu’s whole face there instead, and the shoe would have been worse for it.

The outsole is a translucent, honey toned rubber with cracked lightning veining running through it, like the sole itself is holding a charge. Paired with the enamel Pikachu charm hanging off the laces, small and flat rather than the bulky keychain treatment most collabs default to, the whole shoe reads as considered rather than merchandised. Even the packaging plays along, landing in a matte black box with a faint constellation print and gold foil branding, understated in a way that actually matches the shoe instead of overselling it. Nothing here needed to be loud to prove the license was real. That restraint is consistent from the box straight down to the sole.

PUMA opened its 30th anniversary campaign with a family sized Espeon and Umbreon collection in April, followed it with a Pikachu colored All-Pro Nitro 2 for the court, and is now closing out summer with what’s clearly the premium centerpiece of the whole run. Whether $300 sneakers with no performance tech attached are worth the price is a conversation that predates this shoe by years. But if PUMA is going to keep charging collector prices for nostalgia, this is the version of that trade that actually feels earned. The Suede has always been the brand’s most storied silhouette, and saving it for last was the right call. Whether Pokemon fans agree probably depends on how much shelf space they have left for sneakers they’ll never actually wear.

The post PUMA Turns Its Legendary Suede Into a $300 Pikachu Tribute for Pokemon’s 30th Anniversary first appeared on Yanko Design.

Get Ready for the $349 Smart Ring That Vibrates on Your Finger

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Smart rings have quietly become one of the more compelling wearable categories, but they’ve also settled into a familiar pattern. Almost every new model competes on the same promises: better sleep tracking, a more refined readiness score, and slightly longer battery life. The hardware keeps improving, but the relationship between the wearer and the device hasn’t shifted much. It still mostly communicates through morning reports and app dashboards.

RingConn Gen 3, which launched on July 25, 2026, is making a case for something different. Beyond the usual cardiovascular basics, it introduces vascular trend tracking, giving wearers a longer-view picture of their health over time. It also adds haptic vibration alerts, a feature no other smart ring currently offers. The whole package comes in at $349 with no subscription fees, which keeps the ownership model refreshingly straightforward.

Designer: RingConn

Most attention will drift toward the vascular tracking angle, but the haptic motor deserves a closer look. A smart ring that vibrates on your finger isn’t the same experience as a watch tapping your wrist. The finger is one of the body’s most tactile zones, so a buzz there lands differently, more directly, and in a way that’s harder to tune out or dismiss as background noise.

That difference matters most in the moments when you’d least want to pull out your phone. A quiet nudge during a meeting, a gentle prompt after sitting still for too long, or a discreet alert in the early hours when something shifts overnight, none of those need a screen. They just need a ring that knows when to say something and how to say it without disturbing everyone around you.

The vascular trend tracking feature is the bigger headline in category terms. Rather than adding another single-moment metric to the app dashboard, it monitors patterns over time, giving wearers a broader sense of how their body is trending across days and weeks. It’s framed as a wellness insight rather than a clinical reading, which keeps the expectations grounded and the interpretation squarely in the wearer’s hands.

What makes this interesting from a design standpoint is that RingConn managed to fit optical sensors, a vibration motor, and up to 14 days of battery life into a 2.3mm titanium body. The inner surface uses medical-grade resin for comfort, and the ring itself weighs between 2.3 and 3.5 grams depending on the size. That’s a serious hardware challenge for something designed to sit on your finger all day.

The Gen 3 comes in five finishes: Future Silver, Royal Gold, Matte Black, Brushed Silver, and Brushed Rose Gold. At $349, it’s firmly in premium smart ring territory, but the lack of a subscription fee makes that price easier to justify over time. Rivals that tack on monthly charges for full app access end up costing noticeably more in the long run, which makes RingConn’s flat-fee model considerably more appealing.

Then there’s the Warner Bros. Lord of the Rings collaboration, a limited-edition partnership that RingConn isn’t shy about mentioning. It’s a smart piece of brand alignment, a ring company partnering with the most famous, or infamous, ring in pop culture. Whether the tie-in feels like genuine collector appeal or calculated marketing depends on the buyer, but it does add some character to a category that tends to take itself rather seriously.

What RingConn Gen 3 really proposes is that a smart ring doesn’t have to stay quiet. The category has spent years refining how it listens to the body, and Gen 3 asks what happens when it starts talking back. Whether that’s a light nudge during a sedentary afternoon or a vascular trend surfacing across a few weeks, there’s something worth considering in a ring that finally has something to say.

The post Get Ready for the $349 Smart Ring That Vibrates on Your Finger first appeared on Yanko Design.

adidas Hyperboost Euphoria: The Foam That Outgrew the Track

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Performance sneakers have a habit of making promises they can’t quite keep outside of the gym. They arrive looking like they were engineered on a space station, and the moment you wear them to brunch, you realize the rocker sole is pushing you forward like you’re perpetually late for a sprint. adidas knows this tension well, which is probably why the Hyperboost Euphoria exists.

The Euphoria is the lifestyle sibling of the Hyperboost Edge, the performance running shoe adidas dropped in March. Where the Edge was built for the track, the Euphoria is built for the life you actually live, the one that involves a lot of walking, standing, sitting in cafés, and occasionally jogging for a bus. adidas pulled the same Hyperboost cushioning technology, the pebbled supercritical foam that made the Edge genuinely exciting, and reworked everything else around it. The midsole is carved out to save weight. The stance is wider. The heel extends out. The rocker is intentionally dialed back so the shoe doesn’t feel like it’s trying to propel you somewhere you didn’t ask to go. The result is a platform that is stable and grounded in a way that actually makes sense for daily wear.

Designer: adidas

The upper is where things get interesting from a pure design standpoint. A large TPU net structure wraps the sidewalls, giving the silhouette a kind of exoskeleton quality that reads as technical without being loud about it. The semi-transparent nylon material plays against the structured cage nicely, hinting at the construction underneath. adidas also swapped out the mountain logo on the tongue for the Trefoil, a small but deliberate move that signals exactly what this shoe is: an Originals product, not a performance one. It is the kind of detail that only obsessives notice, and yet it matters.

There is an argument to be made that adidas is exceptionally good at this particular move, taking foam technology born in performance and migrating it into lifestyle. The Boost lineage did it. The 4D midsole has done it. The Hyperboost is following that same arc, and it makes sense commercially and creatively. If you develop something genuinely good, you eventually want it to live in more places.

The Euphoria has also already been spotted off the pitch on Jude Bellingham, Lionel Messi, and Pedri during the FIFA World Cup. That kind of high-profile visibility is not accidental, and it reinforces the positioning. adidas is clearly not treating this as a minor side release.

Colorway-wise, the launch lineup covers blue, black, and white, an all-black option, white and black, and a red that carries the same energy as the more expressive iterations. Bold but not chaotic, which tracks with the overall aesthetic of the shoe.

What I keep thinking about is how the sneaker market has recalibrated around comfort in a way that would have seemed overcorrected a decade ago. The chunky foam wave came, peaked, and landed somewhere permanent. Consumers who once wanted flat, minimal silhouettes are now completely comfortable in a stacked platform, and brands like adidas have gotten very good at making that stack feel intentional rather than excessive. The Hyperboost Euphoria does not feel like a compromise between performance and lifestyle. It feels like a shoe that was designed for exactly where it ended up.

Ilka Liebmann, VP of Design Footwear at adidas Originals, described it best: the shoe was created for those who embrace a sport-inspired lifestyle, people who prioritize spontaneity, comfort, and energy, and let movement lead them. That framing is a little aspirational by nature, but it is also accurate to the product. The Euphoria wears confidently. It does not demand context. You could pair it with technical trousers or track pants or denim and the shoe holds its own across all three.

adidas has made a genuinely considered thing here, and it lands at a moment when the performance-to-lifestyle pipeline feels more refined than ever.

The post adidas Hyperboost Euphoria: The Foam That Outgrew the Track first appeared on Yanko Design.

Merrell Just Made Hiking Shoes That Look Like They’re Alive

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The shoes that make you look twice usually have a story behind them. The Merrell x P.A.M. (Perks and Mini) collaboration is that kind of story, and it starts, surprisingly, in a swamp.

The Australian creative label Perks and Mini teamed up with Merrell to explore two silhouettes you already know: the Chameleon and the Hydro Moc. But the brief wasn’t to simply freshen them up with new colorways or slap a logo on the tongue. The directive was weirder and much more interesting than that: explore amphibian life through form, texture, and function. The result is the Cham Storm GTX and the Hydro Next Gen Moc, two shoes that feel like they were designed at the intersection of a nature documentary and a design school thesis.

Designers: Merrell x P.A.M. (Perks and Mini)

I’ll start with the Cham Storm GTX because it’s the one I keep staring at. The engineered mesh upper gets a custom 3D silicone treatment that reads, unmistakably, as reptile skin. Not in a costume-y way, but in a way that feels considered and intentional, like the design team spent real time studying scale patterns before drawing a single line. A rough sand spray finish adds another layer of texture, and the molded TPU heel counter keeps the whole thing structurally anchored. Underneath all that visual storytelling is a FloatMax foam midsole and Gore-Tex waterproof technology, which means this shoe isn’t just doing aesthetic work. It can handle rain, trails, and whatever else you decide to put it through. The toggle quick-lace system makes getting in and out effortless, which is a small detail but one that matters when you’re moving quickly between environments.

The Hydro Next Gen Moc takes a softer approach. Where the Cham Storm is textured and almost aggressive in its visual language, the Hydro Moc leans into speckle. The EVA foam upper carries a speckled pattern with flecked sidewalls that reads less like armor and more like a frog’s underbelly, in the most complimentary possible way. It’s still loaded with FloatMax foam cushioning, and the easy on/off design makes it the kind of shoe you’ll reach for on days when you need to move from the house to the street to somewhere else without thinking too hard about your feet. The weight barely registers.

What makes this collaboration feel different from the usual outdoor-brand-meets-streetwear-label formula is the conceptual rigor behind it. P.A.M. didn’t just bring an aesthetic direction; they brought a worldview. Amphibious creatures exist in a perpetual in-between state, equally at home on land and in water, which is exactly the kind of cultural positioning that resonates right now. The boundaries between outdoor gear and everyday style have been dissolving for years, and the Merrell x P.A.M. shoes lean into that rather than apologizing for it.

Merrell has always been a brand that lives and dies by its performance credibility. Adding Gore-Tex to a shoe that could easily have coasted on aesthetics alone is a deliberate statement. It’s saying the design and the function are non-negotiable, and that you shouldn’t have to choose between looking interesting and being properly equipped for the day.

The broader conversation this drop enters is about what outdoor footwear is allowed to be. For a long time, “technical” meant beige, and “style-forward” meant sacrificing waterproofing. The Merrell x P.A.M. collaboration doesn’t accept that trade-off. It asks whether a shoe can be inspired by a chameleon, built for wet conditions, carry the creative vision of an independent Australian label, and still be worth wearing on a Tuesday afternoon when nothing remotely swamp-like is happening. The answer, based on what Merrell and P.A.M. put together, is yes.

The Cham Storm GTX and Hydro Next Gen Moc are both available now. Whether you’re buying them for the design, the function, or just the sheer novelty of wearing something that nods to a salamander, they’re worth a closer look.

The post Merrell Just Made Hiking Shoes That Look Like They’re Alive first appeared on Yanko Design.

Oakley Just Turned a Math Paradox Into a $997 Sunglass

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A Möbius strip walks into a design lab. That’s not the setup for a joke. It’s basically the origin story of Oakley’s Infiniloop, the brand’s latest creation and, arguably, one of the more conceptually ambitious pieces of eyewear to come out of any label in recent memory. If you’ve ever found yourself staring at a Möbius strip, that strange one-sided loop that mathematicians love and everyone else finds mildly unsettling, and thought it might look incredible on a face, Oakley has apparently been thinking the same thing.

The Infiniloop made its debut in the second chapter of Oakley’s Future Genesis series, a short film universe the brand has been steadily building that blurs the line between science fiction storytelling and real product design. The premise is ambitious, maybe a little theatrical, but it’s hard to deny that the results are genuinely striking. The sunglass was designed around a single, almost austere obsession: to use the absolute fewest number of lines to carry a lens across the face. That’s the entire brief. The whole design philosophy fits in one sentence, and sometimes that’s exactly as much as a great object needs.

Designer: Oakley

What Oakley landed on is a dual-material frame that pairs titanium on the upper line with their proprietary O-Matter material on the lower. The two meet at just a handful of delicate intersection points, and the space between them is left wide open on purpose. The result is a pair of lenses that appear to float inside the frame, their outer edges fully exposed, giving the whole thing a quality that feels more architectural than eyewear-like. It looks less like a sunglass and more like someone’s sketch of the idea of a sunglass. That’s a compliment.

The Infiniloop comes in Polished Chrome and Matte Black, fitted with Prizm Black lenses on a grey base. For anyone unfamiliar with Oakley’s Prizm technology, the short version is: enhanced color and contrast clarity, designed for performance in bright conditions. It’s the brand’s core lens system, and pairing it with a frame this unconventional is a smart creative decision. It keeps the Infiniloop tethered to functional reality while the rest of the design floats freely somewhere between a math textbook and a concept car.

At $997, the Infiniloop isn’t an impulse buy, and it was never meant to be. It drops July 14th in limited quantities, which in Oakley’s world usually means exactly what it says. Each pair also comes packaged with a collector’s set of Future Genesis Chapter 2 comics, a detail that tells you a lot about who Oakley imagines on the other side of this transaction. The collector crowd and the design-forward crowd intersect more than most people realize, and a piece like this lives right at that crossroads. Whether it ends up worn or displayed is, genuinely, beside the point.

Oakley has always been a brand that takes more swings than most. The X-Metal era gave us shapes that looked like they’d been engineered for a different species, and that specific kind of weirdness is a large part of why the brand has such a deeply loyal following. For a while, that creative ambition felt quieter than it once did. The Infiniloop feels like a reminder that it never fully went away. It’s not trying to be safe, and it’s not trying to appeal to everyone. In a market where a staggering amount of eyewear design amounts to subtle variations on shapes that already exist, that level of commitment to an actual concept is worth noting.

The geometry of infinity made wearable, shipped with comics, priced like a grail piece. Say what you want about whether any of that is practical, but Oakley has always treated practicality as a starting point, not an ending one. The Infiniloop is the kind of object that makes you feel something when you look at it, and in design, that’s rarely an accident.

The post Oakley Just Turned a Math Paradox Into a $997 Sunglass first appeared on Yanko Design.

Birkenstock Just Went to Ballet Class With Repetto

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If you had told me a year ago that two of the most culturally distinct footwear brands in the world would join forces for a collection, I would have been skeptical. A German orthopedic sandal brand and a Parisian ballet institution? On paper, it reads like the setup to a joke. In practice, it might just be one of the most thoughtfully designed collaborations of 2026.

Birkenstock’s 1774 line, the brand’s Paris-based special projects and collaborations unit, has been steadily building a portfolio that makes you reconsider what a sandal can be. Past partnerships with Rick Owens, Valentino, and Dior cemented the label on fashion’s most coveted list. The Repetto chapter, though, feels different. It feels like two brands that genuinely needed to meet, and the design bears that out at every level.

Designers: Birkenstock x Repetto

The collection spans three pieces, and each one tells a slightly different version of the same story. The Arizona sandal comes first, and it’s the most familiar entry point. Birkenstock kept the silhouette exactly as it is, which was the right call, but swapped the standard hardware for exclusive oversized round buckles. The scale shift is subtle but meaningful. The buckles read more sculptural than functional, borrowing the rounded, almost jewelry-like geometry that runs through Repetto’s aesthetic. It’s still unmistakably an Arizona. It just carries itself differently.

The Scala is where the ballet influence becomes most direct. Built on a round-toe base with two top straps and a laced bow at the front, it sits somewhere between a sandal and a ballet flat without fully committing to either. The bow is the kind of detail that could have easily felt costume-y or overdone, but the proportions keep it grounded. It’s small enough to feel considered rather than decorative, which is a harder balance to strike than it looks.

The Opéra sabot is the most adventurous piece of the three. It takes Birkenstock’s clog silhouette, one of the brand’s most architectural forms, and finishes it with long laces that wrap around the ankle the way a dancer’s ribbon would. The contrast between the solid, structured base of the clog and the softness of the wrapping lace is genuinely interesting from a design standpoint. It’s the piece that most clearly shows what happens when you treat a Birkenstock as a canvas rather than a finished object.

That framing came directly from Repetto CEO Charlotte Gaucher-Holmann, who described approaching Birkenstock’s silhouettes as a “blank canvas.” The result is a collection where neither brand disappears into the other. Birkenstock’s construction logic stays intact, the cork footbed, the contoured sole, the characteristic weight and proportion of each silhouette. Repetto layers its visual language on top without disrupting the architecture underneath.

That visual language is specific and consistent across all three pieces. The color palette draws from Repetto’s signature shades: Iconic Pink, Flame Red, and Profound Black. These are not trend colors. They’re house colors, the kind that have been associated with the brand long enough to carry their own meaning. The pink in particular has that very specific quality of being both soft and confident, which is harder to achieve in pigment than it sounds.

The Vichy-check gingham footbed lining is another detail worth pausing on. Hidden inside the shoe, it only reveals itself when worn. It’s a Repetto signature motif, and placing it at the footbed rather than on any visible exterior surface feels like a deliberate act of restraint. You know it’s there. It just doesn’t announce itself.

Grosgrain ribbon trim finishes the edges on key pieces, and again, the choice of material matters. Grosgrain has weight and structure. It doesn’t drape or flutter. For a collaboration rooted in dance, that tension between movement and structure runs all the way through the design decisions, from the buckle scale on the Arizona to the lace wrap on the Opéra.

The collection launches July 16 through 1774.com, Repetto’s own channels, and select retailers worldwide. Given how quickly 1774 collaborations have sold out historically, hesitating is probably not the strategy here. Iconic Pink alone is going to move fast.

The post Birkenstock Just Went to Ballet Class With Repetto first appeared on Yanko Design.

New Balance’s 3-in-1 modular shoe transforms from waterproof boot to camp slipper, so you pack less

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Many of us would remember the New Balance Niobium Concept 1. Launched back in 2020, the modular silhouette really reformed outdoor footwear with its multi-functional design, which allowed it to be used in more than one way. Of course, many brands have been approaching modular footwear design with the idea of a circular economy in mind, where the shoe can be taken apart for recycling convenience. However, New Balance’s approach is different.

It is working on a pair of shoes that can actually pull off not two but at least three different purposes. This was substantiated by the Niobium Concept 1, which is now flowing as inspiration into the newly launched New Balance TDS MSNB1, which offers similar capabilities but in a new form and colors.

Designer: New Balance

A bold intersection of craftsmanship, innovation, and functionality, the TDS MSNB1 is a revival of the Niobium Concept 1, pulled off in partnership by New Balance and Tokyo Design Studio Revive. The remarkable New Balance adaptability of the silhouette is retained with the addition of Tokyo Design Studio’s signature lifestyle aesthetics to form this shoe that changes shape in “three distinct stages of wear.” It can be worn as a rugged waterproof boot and become a functional outdoor mule when required. When you finally retire to the cozy comforts of the camp, it can also be used as a comfortable indoor slipper.

The modular nature of the TDS MSNB1 is ensured by the use of a specialized system of zippers that run down the tongue and around the heel. These zippers allow the wearer to easily assemble or disassemble the shoe’s components according to the activity or the time of day.

New Balance TDS MSNB1 modular silhouette is available in two colorways. While the TDS MSNB1 Zinc Blue is somewhere close to the tested territories, the Pistachio Butter colorway – in a muted yellow-green – is more enticing and distinct. Both the versatile shoes share the same design language. They comprise a stretch rip-stop upper, a neoprene collar, and welded PU overlays. The tongue is devoid of usual laces and features bungee elastic laces inside, while a zipper runs down the side of the tongue and around the heel.

For its durability as a camping boot, it features an eVent waterproof membrane and a rubber outsole for comfort. Since the design and functionality remain the same, your choice of color is what can make the difference between the two new offerings. You can make up your mind now. The New Balance TDS MSNB1 in both colorways is available starting today, July 2, with each costing $300.

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Rick Owens and adidas Are Back, and They Brought Air Conditioning

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If you’ve ever stood outside in peak summer heat thinking, “someone really needs to fix this,” Rick Owens apparently heard you. At his Spring/Summer 2027 menswear show held at the Palais de Tokyo during Paris Men’s Fashion Week, the notoriously dark, architectural designer made a surprise announcement of sorts: he and adidas are back together, and this time, they came with cooling technology sewn right into the clothes.

The reunion itself is already big news. The original Rick Owens x adidas partnership ran from 2013 to 2017 and produced some of the most visually striking footwear of that era. Chunky, sculptural sneakers that looked like they belonged in a sci-fi film became collector staples. Nearly a decade later, the two are picking up right where they left off creatively, but the direction has shifted entirely. This is no longer about shoes. This is about what you put on your body when the planet refuses to cooperate.

Designers: Rick Owens x adidas

The collection features inflatable tracksuits fitted with adidas’ Climacool technology and integrated fans that circulate air directly around the wearer. Ballooning jackets and shorts expand dramatically around the body, creating silhouettes that look part sculptural art installation, part protective gear for some future we haven’t quite arrived at yet. The palette stays true to Owens’ signature obsessions: black, white, leather, latex, and technical fabrics that make everything feel simultaneously post-apocalyptic and razor-precise.

What makes this more than a clever gimmick is the context. Paris was reportedly sweltering during this particular fashion week, making the inflatable cooling garments less of a conceptual gesture and more of a direct, almost blunt response to conditions on the ground. Owens didn’t hide the technology. He put it front and center, letting the puffed forms become the silhouette rather than something tucked away beneath a lining. Wearable cooling as a visible design choice rather than a discreet utility is a genuinely interesting move, and it reframes what performance wear can mean in a luxury context.

The show itself was called “Stone.” It was moved from its usual afternoon time slot, which already tells you the team was thinking about heat logistics from the jump. Presented at the Palais de Tokyo, the setting felt apt for a collection that reads like a serious piece of speculative design. These are clothes asking a real question: as temperatures climb and climate disruption becomes a consistent backdrop to daily life, how does fashion respond beyond making linen shirts?

Rick Owens has always had this quality where the extreme nature of his vision somehow makes total sense the moment you see it in context. Inflatable suits with fans built in sounds absurd until you’re watching models move through them on a scorching Paris afternoon. Then it starts to feel less like provocation and more like logic. That balance between the theatrical and the genuinely functional is exactly what keeps this designer relevant across decades.

The adidas partnership adds a layer here that feels important. adidas brings serious technical credibility, including Climacool, which has roots in motorsport and was developed over years before making it to football. Pairing that depth of performance engineering with Owens’ architectural fashion language creates something that neither brand could pull off alone. It’s not a logo collaboration. It’s a genuine material conversation between two very different fluencies in how clothing can perform.

Whether these pieces ever reach everyday consumers in a wearable form, or whether they stay in the realm of editorial and collector culture, almost doesn’t matter for the conversation they’re opening. Climate-adaptive fashion has been floating around the design world for a few years now, usually in academic or experimental contexts. Seeing it hit a major runway like this, with actual technology and actual scale behind it, moves the needle. The Rick Owens x adidas SS27 collection isn’t just a reunion worth noting. It’s a reminder that the most interesting design often comes from taking an urgent problem and refusing to make it invisible.

The post Rick Owens and adidas Are Back, and They Brought Air Conditioning first appeared on Yanko Design.