Ancient Japan has been the provenance of many philosophies, relevant in the contemporary age just as it were then—if not, more so. One such is the ethereal concept of kintsugi: the art of fixing broken ceramics by mending the seams with liquid gold, leaving a golden seam where the cracks used to be. The Japanese aesthetic has always valued the marks of wear from an object’s usage, seeing damage and repairs as events in the object’s life, adding to its beauty, rather than a foreshadowing of its end.

Using kintsugi as the central motif, Saucony introduces their Shadow 6000 in a new ‘delicate’ colorway. The brand normally reserves its premium materials for special releases such as this one.

The upper, built over a speckled midsole, has been crafted using a perforated nubuck base complemented by premium suede overlays. ‘Kintsugi’ in Japanese characters is debossed on the leather tongue tag, with an exposed foam on the lip of the hairy suede tongue. The metallic gold embroidery on the medial resembles the cracks, representing the essence of the philosophy, speaking of the passage of time.

The Saucony Shadow 6000 “Kintsugi” is available now on its official web store for US$150.

Check out the Brain Dead x Reebok Club C Revenge, another sneaker with design cues close to nature.