While their contemporaries have been focusing on various revivals of their back catalogue, Reebok has been blazing their own trail, taking inspiration from the great outdoors and retrofitting their footwear for the concrete jungle. Giving renewed focus to their modern silhouettes through a utilitarian scope, the modus operandi’s evident through 2022’s collaborations with emmi and A$AP Nast on the Zig Kinetica 2.5, Mountain Research on the Beatnik, and most recently with Nicole McLaughlin on the Reebok Club C Geo Mid.

Carrying on, they’re no stranger to the Nepenthes umbrella having worked with South2 West8 on the aforementioned Zig Kinetica as well. This time, they begin a new partnership with Engineered Garments on the LX2200.

“To design this shoe, we utilized basic earth colors and applied our traditional brand aesthetic through material mixtures and an asymmetrical color scheme,” EG head honcho Daiki Suzuki said. “We wanted to highlight elements of New York City that are not normally seen in campaigns. In particular, Flushing Meadows, home of the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fair Grounds, was a setting that felt genuine as it has so much historical significance.”

The three-piece collaboration infuses EG’s signature design language into the ’80s silhouette. It strikes a perfect balance between uniformity and disruption, the asymmetrical motif signature to Suzuki artfully integrated into the overall aesthetic. The left and right shoes subtly distinct from each other by way of the disparate panelling. The color palette borrows from the tones of nature for one of the pairs with the others arriving in a seraphic white makeup and stealthy triple-black.

All three Engineered Garments x Reebok LX2200s will retail for US$140 and will be available on Nepenthes on 8 December before a wider release on the 10th.

In other sneaker-related news, have a look at the BEAMS x New Balance 2002R “Grey GTX”, another designed for a vis-à-vis with nature.