Kiko Kostadinov x ASICS Gel Delva 1 'Murasaki'
Colorway: Murasaki/Performance Black · Style code: 1013A041-500 · Release date: January 19, 2019 · Price: $812 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Kiko Kostadinov x ASICS Gel Delva 1 'Black Steel' (1013A041-001) · Kiko Kostadinov x ASICS Gel Delva 1 'Cool Mist' (1013A041-100) · ASICS GelDelva 1 Kiko Kostadinov Sneakers (1013A041-200) · Kiko Kostadinov x ASICS Gel Delva 1 'Forest Green' (1013A041-300) · Kiko Kostadinov x ASICS Gel Delva 1 'Tai-Chi Yellow' (1013A041-750)
The name is the plain Japanese word for purple, which is a fair description of what the shoe does: the Delva 1's layered upper is rendered in blues and violets that shift depending on which layer you are looking at. Because the construction puts a mesh cage over a soft textile shell, a two-tone treatment reads as depth rather than as a stripe of contrast color, and this is the pair that leans hardest on that.
It belongs to the second collection Kiko Kostadinov produced with ASICS. Kostadinov is Bulgarian, based in London, and trained at Central Saint Martins; his arrangement with the Japanese company, which began in 2018, was unusual in that it produced original models instead of reissues, so the Delva 1 has no vintage counterpart to be measured against.
What sits under the design is standard-issue ASICS running hardware (a heel stabilizer, a GEL midsole, FLYTEFOAM and DUOMAX), which is why the shoe wears far more easily than its silhouette suggests. At $300 it was priced as a designer object; the running-shoe engineering inside was the part that had to justify it.