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Brand: Prada
Model: America’s Cup Original
Season: Fall/Winter 2021
Price: $890
Buy: Prada’s website and stores
Editor’s Notes: Coveted by collectors and remixed constantly, Prada’s America’s Cup sneaker is as OG as luxury sneakers get. First launched in 1997, the chunky watersports shoe predated the high-end sneaker crossover and remains a Prada mainstay alongside other reborn lines, like Linea Rossa.
For Fall/Winter 2021, Prada is taking the America’s Cup back to where everything began, raiding the archive to create the America’s Cup Original, a series of throwback sneakers that channel the materials, shape, and colorways of the first America’s Cup kicks — the extra labor involved with painstakingly recreating the OG shoes has bumped the price up, too.
But, for the ‘heads, there is no worthy alternative to the debut America’s Cup sneakers.
Originally designed to be worn by Prada’s Luna Rossa sailing team, the America’s Cup Original carries over the plush leather and breathable mesh uppers and grippy rubber outsoles from the debut model, realized in the same muted ultramarine, white, and black colorways.
There are even a few velcro’d pairs from Spring/Summer 2002, straying beyond the purely classic laced models of the late ’90s.
To reiterate their legacy, the America’s Cup Original shoes come with a tag that states the year they debuted, denoting the yearly season as the shoe’s “First Exhibition.” A worthy descriptor for a shoe that die-hards still consider a work of art.
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