Last season at New York Fashion Week, designer Sandy Liang called her Fall 2024 collection "an ode to wearing your clothes, to growing up a little without sacrificing what you love." Bow-adorned mini dresses and smart, pleated skirts that still screamed "girlhood aesthetic" were just part of the equation. Another part involved pairs of chunky black sneakers with pink pointe shoe ribbons where the laces would normally go.
Those shoes—a sign of the ballet sneaker trend's foothold in the market—attracted a lot of attention on social media without any confirmation from the designer as to when they'd be sold. (Sample comment: "When are these dropping 👀.") Five months later, the brand's making official what its beribboned front row guessed back in February: Sandy Liang and Salomon collaborated for a second time, on three sneakers made less for running and more for dancing in the street.
Sandy Liang and Salomon have worked together since 2021, when the designer first styled the Alpine sneaker brand's kicks into her runway presentation. Two years later, in 2023, Liang and Salomon released their first proper collaboration: a pair of XT-6 Expanse trail sneakers, coated in a girlish bubblegum pink.
Those shoes brought Liang's penchant for all things pink and romantic to a hardworking trail sneaker, without many changes to the silhouette. For the second collaboration, the shape and structure of the shoe is as much Liang's as those aforementioned ribbon laces. One pair, the RX MJ Sandy Liang, updates the Mary Jane trend with thinner, criss-crossing straps and a treaded sole. The other, the Speedcross 3 Ribbon Sandy Liang, combines ABT rehearsal energy with the support and heft of a running shoe. Both are available today at Liang's New York City flagship store; they'll go online at Salomon and at select retailers on July 25.
In a press release, Liang says this collection expands on her point-of-view in a more deliberate way. “It’s exciting to see the second chapter of this partnership come to life with new designs and reimagined silhouettes for Salomon icons that pair so naturally with the collections I create,” Liang says.
Sandy Liang x Salomon's 2.0 collaboration arrives as a ballet sneaker trend kicks (or rather, jetés) into high gear. Hybrid shoes combining delicate ballet slipper uppers with 10,000-step day soles are everywhere from Simone Rocha to Sketchers. There's also a steep rise in sneaker collaborations translating brands with ultra-feminine codes into court-ready shoes—like Asics's back-to-back sneakers with Danish designer Cecilie Bahnsen and Shanghai-based ShuShu/Tong.
In Sandy Liang's case, the new capsule is less about keeping up with 2024 sneaker trends and more about finding a new conduit for one of her favorite influences. Ballerina motifs show up in delicate silver earrings and square-toed satin flats throughout her recent collections. “The pointe shoe has always fascinated me and I thought it’d be beautiful to incorporate the ribbon details into a Salomon shoe,” she says.
The sneakers' appeal comes back to what Liang's show notes first said. Slipping on the remixed Mary Janes and the ribbon-laced running shoes are a way to tap into an inner child with prima ballerina aspirations—just in a way that's suited to real, adult life.
Sandy Liang x Salomon is available now at Sandy Liang's flagship store, and will be available at select retailers beginning July 25.
