The Stranger Things LaFrancé Is the One Shoe in PUMA’s Pack That Isn’t Pale Plum

PUMA opens orders on three Stranger Things shoes on November 6, and two of them are the same color. The MB.06 is Pale Plum and Purple Charcoal. The LaFrancé RNR is Pale Plum and Peach Frost. The third pair, the one carrying no suffix at all, is Glowing Red and Hyperlink Blue. It is the only shoe in the pack that is not built on the plum, and the only one PUMA put on the plain LaFrancé rather than the model that has been carrying the line.

LaFrancé is the half of LaMelo Ball’s PUMA deal that never touches a court. PUMA Hoops launched it in April 2024 and named it after Ball’s own streetwear label rather than anything to do with basketball, and designer Noah Bice described the brief at the time as a skate-inspired chunky upper on a cup sole, built for a player who does everything large. The first pair shipped that May in a red Amour colorway with ultra-wide flat laces and floating ovals set into the midsole. It was always the loose, off-court answer to the numbered MB signature line, which gets a new model roughly every year and has to survive an NBA season.

Two and a half years later the line is large and the original is not what is holding it up. A search of PUMA’s own store for LaFrancé returns seventy-five results across footwear, kids’ sizing and apparel, and nearly every shoe in it is an RNR. The standard RNR, an RNR Trail, an RNR Camo, a kids’ Written in Chrome, and two Fast & Furious RNR colorways all sit in that list. The Stranger Things pair is the only adult shoe PUMA currently lists under the LaFrancé name with nothing after it, which makes a licensed colorway the thing keeping the original in the catalogue.

PUMA’s description of it runs to two sentences and promises plush cushioning and co-branded details. The photographs carry the rest. The upper is one saturated coral red worked over with a raised network of branching blue tendrils that cross the toe, the quarter panel and the midsole sidewall without a break, so the pattern reads as growth rather than as a print laid over the top. The laces are wide flat bands in the same blue, threaded loosely across a low throat. A molded heel clip and a bright red mesh collar sit above a sculpted cup sole. Turn it over and the outsole is the loudest thing on the shoe, a pale mint green tread set into red and cut into large irregular shapes with small round studs between them. On the tongue an LF monogram badge carries the Stranger Things wordmark above it, and LaFrancé is written in script along the lateral side.

Covering the Stranger Things MB.06, this site wrote that the three shoes share the Pale Plum base. PUMA’s own colorway names say otherwise, and this is the pair that proves it. The correction matters more than the color does, because the other two went literal. The MB.06 carries a Demogorgon’s open mouth down its lateral side. The RNR carries a root relief in plum. This one carries red and blue over vegetation and type, which is the show’s title card rather than anything living inside the show, and it is the only one of the three a person could wear without having to explain it. Licensed footwear almost always sells the creature, because the creature is what photographs. Building the quiet one in the pack on the model that needed the help is the more interesting call.

There is one more thing sitting in PUMA’s own group photograph for this release. Four pairs are laid out in it rather than three. Alongside the plum MB.06, the plum RNR and this shoe is a teal MB.06 carrying the same maw, and that pair is not on the US launch calendar and returns no product page on PUMA’s own site.

The license is doing most of the pricing work. This pair is $120, the Stranger Things RNR beside it is $130, and the Stranger Things MB.06 is $135. The more useful comparison is the line the pack is borrowing from. PUMA’s listing for the in-line LaFrancé RNR currently reads $74.99, and the Fast & Furious RNR LA, the last license this line took, currently reads $79.99. Both of those are selling prices rather than announced retail, and both are what a buyer would pay today, so a Netflix logo is worth roughly forty dollars on a shoe out of the same family.

The PUMA x Stranger Things LaFrancé releases November 6 in Glowing Red and Hyperlink Blue, article number 314660, at $120. PUMA has it listed for pre-order now at us.puma.com, alongside the LaFrancé RNR and the MB.06, which open the same morning.

Written by

The Sneakers Team

The Sneakers Team is the editorial desk behind becausesneakers, founded and edited by Nick Engvall. Nick has spent more than two decades in the sneaker industry. He built the original Eastbay Blog, led the first dedicated sneaker team at Complex, ran the first UGC and seeding programs at Finish Line, was employee number nine at StockX, and served as Senior Director at Stadium Goods. He hosts the Sneaker History podcast, and his first book, Small Luxuries: Sneakers, arrives in October 2026 from Motorbooks. Release details on this site are checked against the brand's own product information before publication, and anything we cannot confirm is labelled rather than stated.

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