STRONGER, HIGHER, FASTER: Tom Ford is getting into the luxury sneaker business. For fall, the designer will offer high- and low-top models in seven colors of leather and five in velvet. Each shoe is manufactured in Italian workshops by artisan cobblers who spend a week stitching, polishing and then “resting” the leather for 10 days where the shape of the shoe is created. They’re then hand-polished over three days.
Both the leather and velvet models have white rubber soles. Retail prices range from $690 for the velvet low-tops to $990 for the leather high-tops. The shoes will be available at the Tom Ford stores in New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas. Ford unveiled the sneakers during London Collections: Men in January, saying at the time, “I have resisted the tennis shoe,” adding he finally succumbed since he figured out how to make them his own.