Most of us know the feeling of being pulled two ways at once. One part of you wants to hold on to what has always worked. The other part knows the calendar is moving whether you’re ready or not. It’s a quietly tiring place to live, and it’s exactly the tension Celine has chosen to put into a pair of trainers.
Michael Rider, Celine’s creative director, describes the collaboration as “heritage two ways”: Paris street on one side, American movement on the other. In his words, both Celine and Reebok sit between the past and the here and now. That’s a neat line, but the shoe does the better job of explaining it.
The starting point is the Reebok Freestyle Lo, introduced in 1982. Designer Angel Martinez created it with women in mind, during the aerobics boom of the early 1980s. It went on to become one of Reebok’s best-known unisex styles. Few trainers have travelled that far from a studio floor to a street corner.
Rider’s version keeps that low-top profile but pares it back. The upper is soft, pliable lambskin, with a gently worn-in feel from day one. On the tongue, the Celine name appears in Reebok’s own typeface, so each house is visible in the other’s lettering. The toe box carries perforated detailing, and one pattern traces the Triomphe, Celine’s historic emblem. It’s subtle, and you’ll only notice it if you look closely.
Colour is where Rider’s hand really shows. The shoe comes in eight monochrome shades: Optic White, Black, Butter, Beige, Peanut, Dark Brown, Oxblood and Fluo Red. Celine’s own tagline sums it up neatly: one style, eight colours, infinite possibilities. The Fluo Red is the bold choice. The Peanut and Dark Brown feel more like something you’d keep for years.
There’s also a story in the timing. This is Celine’s first sneaker collaboration, and it debuted at Rider’s first standalone menswear show at the Tennis Club de Paris in June. A house known for polish chose the most democratic shoe imaginable. Where luxury is heading: pieces made to be worn, scuffed and worn again, rather than guarded.
Perhaps that’s the real appeal. Rider describes the shoe as something that has moved through time and still moves with us. For anyone worn thin by the pace of modern working life, it’s a reminder that you don’t have to choose between where you’ve come from and where you’re going. The best things carry both, and they look rather good doing it.
