The new Ferrari x Puma sneaker looks like it was made in 2017

The partnership of Puma and Ferrari for the production of branded sneakers has been going on for a long time. But with the recent restyling of the brand, which last Sunday presented its first SS22 collection designed by Rocco Iannone, the collaboration between the Maranello company and the German brand also needed a revamp. On the occasion of Ferrari's debut in fashion, therefore, the two brands launched the new ION F Sneaker, inspired by the famous SF90 Stradale model. The sneaker should represent the novelty of the brand's footwear offer as part of Ferrari's wider repositioning in the lifestyle field. Yet there are some things that seem wrong: nominally, their aesthetics and their price.

Starting a fashion brand is not easy: to be successful you need to be able to express a certain brand identity in aesthetic terms and then make it work commercially. In other words, you have to create a desirable product. During the creative development of any product, especially in a market already hypersaturated and whose customers are increasingly informed and in step with the latest trends such as that of sneakers, it would be necessary to move more cautiously than usual. The wave of boisterous and baroque sneakers, for example, especially with the sock construction, passed at least three years ago: in the face of the return of the most classic and discreet sneakers, this release seems a little out of touch, not to say completely out of fashion. A different discourse must be made for the Nitefox model, inspired by the Ferrari Testarossa, this is more interesting, also for a matter of materials and minimalism but which was not presented with the same emphasis as the ION F.

In addition, what immediately comes to the eye is the price of the new sneaker: if in fact all the other sneakers produced so far together with Puma, some of which are still on sale on the official website, did not exceed 150€, this new model costs 450€ - a cost that exceeds that of many other models of luxury sneakers such as some models of Margiela Replica or the vast majority of Yeezy silhouettes and that approaches that of sneakers such Raf Simons' Cylon-21 or Acne Studios' Rockaway. In terms of materials, then, the sneaker turns out to be composed of polyester and elastane - hardly materials that justify such a high price. The other model, on the other hand, the Nitefox, appear to be composed of 81% leather and, strangely enough, cost 50€ less than the ION F - although the Nitefox model of Puma usually costs 70€.