Everlane’s product page calls the Pista a driving shoe. The press release that went out ahead of it calls the same shoe a driver sneaker inspired by classic motorsport footwear. Those are two different objects with two different histories, and the photography settles which one actually shipped. The Collegium x Everlane Pista arrived September 23 inside a five-style capsule, and what turned up is not a pebbled driving moccasin. It is closer to a racing shoe, and the name agrees.
Pista is Italian for track, in the racetrack sense. Collegium, the Los Angeles label founded by Nick Sisombath, builds this one as the Pillar Pista, a low-profile lace-up rather than a slip-on, and the distinction is the entire point. The driving moccasin, the pebbled Gommino shape Tod’s is known for, is a soft slipper with rubber studs running across the sole and up the back of the heel. The studs exist so a driver can feel a pedal through a thin layer without grinding the heel of a leather sole into the floor mat. It is a shoe about arriving somewhere.
Motorsport footwear went the other direction entirely. Racing boots and the lace-up driving sneakers that grew out of them are flat, thin through the sole and cut low at the collar, built for pedal feel and for heel-and-toe work. No studs, because a studded sole is worse at the one job that matters while the car is moving. PUMA has been mining that lineage for years on the Speedcat, most recently on the Cathari collaboration. The Pista sits closer to that family tree than to Tod’s, whatever the product page says.
The shoe that shipped is low and flat, in crimson suede panelled against smooth crimson leather so the two finishes read as one color until the light moves across them. The foxing stripe and the sole are cream, the laces are cream, and there is no pebbling anywhere on the outsole. Everlane describes it as hand stitched from genuine Italian leather with a removable hybrid leather and thermo-polyurethane insole, and notes that it runs slightly large.
The detail the copy skips is inside. The sockliner is a pale, washed-out blue, plainly visible looking down into the pair, and it is the only thing in the entire makeup that is neither crimson nor cream. On a shoe this restrained, one hidden color is not an accident. Everlane’s image set also includes a frame of two loose laces shot on their own beside the pair, one cream and one darker brown, though the listing does not say whether a second set ships in the box.
Everlane selling sneakers is not new. Everlane selling sneakers designed by somebody with standing in footwear is. The capsule runs five styles co-designed with Sisombath, and the two sneakers in it, the Pista and the Court, are carrying the rest. A loafer, a derby and a boot from Everlane read as a wardrobe update. The same three standing next to two Collegium sneakers read as a footwear label, which is a different and more expensive thing to be.
Whether it lands depends on a customer base that mostly does not know what Collegium is. The upside runs the other way too. Collegium’s own shoes have never been easy to try on in person, and Everlane has stores. Distribution traded for credibility is an old deal and it usually works out better for the larger party. What makes this one worth watching is that Everlane did not license a name and stamp it onto an existing mold. It gave up design control across five shoes, and the two sneakers are recognizably Collegium’s rather than Everlane’s with a co-sign attached.
At $240 the Pista is the cheapest thing in the capsule, which puts the sneakers at the entry point rather than the ceiling. It is still a lot for a sneaker carrying no cushioning technology and no logo, and that is the fair objection to it. The money buys Italian hand-stitching and a shape, and for anyone who wants neither, the shoe has no second argument to fall back on. The Court sits at $265 and the three non-sneaker styles run from $289 to $379, so the two sneakers are doing the work of getting people into the collection.
The Collegium x Everlane Pista released September 23 in Dune, Crimson and Platinum Suede, sold in unisex sizing carried under both men’s and women’s listings, at Everlane stores and online, for $240. Everlane recommends sizing down for anyone caught between sizes. The capsule is limited edition and sold exclusively through Everlane.
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