Salomon XT-6 'Gull Granada Sky'
Colorway: Gull/Granada Sky/Grey Green · Style code: L47147900 · Release date: February 23, 2023 · Price: $283 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Salomon Wmns Sense Ride 5 'India Ink Arctic Ice' (L47147000) · Salomon Sense Ride 5 GORE-TEX 'Black Magnet' (L47147200) · Salomon XT-6 'Vanilla Rose Cloud' (L47147800)
Salomon spent most of its existence being bought for function. François Salomon started the company in Annecy in 1947 making ski edges by hand; his son Georges grew it into a full outdoor business covering skiing, snowboarding, hiking and climbing. adidas owned it from 1997, and the Finnish group Amer Sports has owned it since 2005.
The XT-6 changed the audience without changing the product. It is a trail running shoe: technical mesh, an external cage that tightens around the foot, a quicklace pull instead of tied laces, and a deep-lugged outsole for loose ground. By 2023 it had been adopted well outside running, worn in cities as part of the broader turn toward utilitarian outdoor clothing, and it became the model most associated with that shift.
None of the engineering was softened for the new buyer, which is the interesting part: the features that made it desirable to people who would never run on a mountain are precisely the ones designed for people who would.
This version works in a muted grey with a granada blue and a grey-green, dated February 2023 at $200.