The Ritual of New Leather

There’s something almost ceremonial about opening a new sneaker box. The smell hits first—that particular compound of fresh leather, foam, and whatever industrial process turns raw materials into footwear. Then the tissue paper crinkle, the careful lifting, the first real look at a shoe that hasn’t been worn by anyone, ever. It sounds ridiculous to describe it this way, but if you’ve felt it, you know.

Reebok Classic spent the mid-1980s doing something genuinely interesting: convincing people that a sports shoe could live on the street. The aerobics boom gave them an in—people needed something that worked on the gym floor but didn’t look clinical walking to the subway—and from that functional need they built an aesthetic that held up across decades. The Classic Leather is the direct line back to that moment. The silhouette hasn’t needed much updating because it didn’t overcorrect in the first place.

The pearlized version sits somewhere between everyday wear and something you’d actually consider for a night out. The iridescent finish catches light differently depending on the angle, which is either annoying or the entire point, depending on how you feel about that kind of thing. Five colorways: black, rose gold, teal, white, champagne. The champagne especially does something unexpected—reads more expensive than the price suggests.

Forty years on from those aerobics videos, the shoe still works. That’s not nothing.