VandyThePink x ASICS GEL-Kayano 12.1 “Vanilla” Is $195, and Chocolate Is the Pair Resale Wants

The VandyThePink x ASICS GEL-Kayano 12.1 “Vanilla” costs $195 and it came out on August 14, not July 1. This page carried $250 and the July date, and neither is right. ASICS‘ own product page lists $195, the July date was an early placeholder that got pushed, and the shoe has been on shelves and in the resale market for three weeks. The page also called SVD an Italian retailer. SVD is Sivasdescalzo, it is Spanish and based in Barcelona, and no ASICS or first-tier source connects it to this release at all, so it has been taken out rather than corrected.

The GEL-Kayano line started in 1993 and is named after Toshikazu Kayano, who by ASICS’ own account designed every model in the series through the fourteenth. It was built as a stability trainer, the shoe for runners whose feet roll inward, and it stayed near the top of ASICS’ running range for three decades. The 12.1 is the lifestyle reissue of the GEL-Kayano 12, which released in 2006. This page previously called it an early-2000s silhouette. Mid-2000s is closer, and 2006 is the year worth stating outright.

ASICS does not publish an explanation of what the “.1” suffix means, so it is worth describing what is observable rather than inventing a rule. Shoes carrying it, this one and the GEL-Nimbus 10.1 among them, sit in ASICS’ Sportstyle category rather than in the numbered performance running line, which is currently past its thirtieth GEL-Kayano. The pattern reads as ASICS’ shorthand for a lifestyle version of an archived performance number, but ASICS has never said so.

A note on how the brand writes its own names, since this page had it wrong too. ASICS styles them GEL-KAYANO and GEL-LYTE III in caps, not Gel-Lyte III. The GT-2160 also mentioned here is real but sits somewhere different from the other two: it is part of the GT-2000 family that ran beneath the GEL-Kayano in the stability range, released in 2011 and replaced within a year, then revived as a lifestyle model much later.

The “Vanilla” makeup runs style code 1203B302-100 in ASICS’ own colorway string of Antique White on Antique White. Vandy Son, who works as VandyThePink, built his following customizing sneakers with food motifs before any brand called, and the ice cream idea here is not a retrofit by the sneaker press. ASICS’ own product copy grounds the pack in ice-ke-ki, the Korean term for ice cream and popsicles, which connects to Son’s own biography rather than to a generic dessert theme. A “Chocolate” pair, style code 1203B302-200, released alongside it.

What makes this the more interesting of the two is that the market prefers the other one. StockX has “Vanilla” averaging around $314 across 257 sales in the trailing three months, with the most recent sale near $231. “Chocolate” averages closer to $386 on 74 sales. Resale platform figures are directional rather than official, but a spread that wide between two colorways of the same shoe, released the same month at the same price, says the darker pair is the one people actually wanted, and that the neutral one is where a buyer at retail had the better odds.

This is Son’s second ASICS project, not a debut. The first was the GEL-Nimbus 10.1 “Banana Split” pack with atmos, unveiled at atmosCon in Japan and released May 30, 2025 at $180. The through-line matters for reading ASICS’ strategy here: the brand keeps handing archived running numbers to designers who will treat them as objects rather than as running shoes, and it keeps working. A stability trainer from 2006 is not a shoe anyone was asking for on its own merits.

At $195 the Kayano 12.1 sits $15 above the Nimbus collaboration that preceded it, which is a modest step for a partnership whose first outing is still trading around $367 on average. Against ASICS’ general lifestyle range it is a premium number, and against what both colorways are actually fetching it looks conservative.

The VandyThePink x ASICS GEL-Kayano 12.1 “Vanilla”, style code 1203B302-100, released August 14 at $195 through ASICS and select retailers, with the “Chocolate” pair in the same window. Both are on the secondary market now. The silhouette’s other recent outing is the Albino & Preto x atmos GEL-Kayano 12.1, and the rest of the model sits in the GEL-Kayano 12.1 hub.

Source: Justfreshkicks

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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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