BEAMS BOY Dresses the PUMA Suede in Long-Pile Black and Hands Over Five Laces

BEAMS BOY’s all-black PUMA Suede goes on sale in Japan on October 23 at ¥15,400, boxed with five laces, one for each category the label builds its wardrobe around.

Black is the whole idea. For its latest collide with PUMA, BEAMS BOY leaves the sil of the Suedeuntouched and works on the surface instead. The upper is long-pile black suede, and the Formstrip along the side is nylon, a texture change inside an otherwise single-color shoe. Unlike the volume-boosted shapes BEAMS applied to its earlier Made in Japan Suede projects, this pair keeps PUMA’s standard proportions, and it carries a price of ¥15,400. Reservations opened on October 7, which gives the pair a sixteen-day window before sales begin on October 23.

Signal. What happened: BEAMS BOY has announced SUEDE BEAMS BOY, an all-black connection on the PUMA Suede, with reservations open from October 7. Exact object: a PUMA Suede with a long-pile black suede upper and a nylon Formstrip, priced at ¥15,400, sized 23 to 25 cm in half sizes, with five laces included. When and where: sales begin Friday, October 23, 2026 at BEAMS BOY label stockists across Japan and the BEAMS official online store, with some stores excluded. Source: a few rely editorials.  Why it matters: it is the second PUMA x BEAMS BOY release in as many autumns, after a three-year gap before the first, and it moves the series from last year’s navy BRASIL to the model BEAMS traces to 1968. Earlier: the August 2026 PUMA x le PÈRE Suede piece and the earlier BEAMS x HOKA Bondi 7 coverage.

stir

The box matters as much as the shoe. Instead of one spare pair, BEAMS BOY packs five laces, each assigned to a category the label uses to sort its idea of a wardrobe: BASIC, SPORTS, OUTDOOR, MILITARY, and WORK. A flat black lace is the default and stands for BASIC. A black reflective lace covers SPORTS, a purple one OUTDOOR, an olive one MILITARY, and a vintage-treated black one WORK, meant to suggest a shoe that has already lived a while. Swapping them moves the same pair from a plain black sneaker toward a trail, a field jacket, or a workshop.

The lace set also shows how the thinking has changed. Last year’s BRASIL shipped with four laces hue to match a blazer: plain black, navy, and green, plus a logo lace modeled on the jacquard tape inside the jacket. This year’s five are organized by category instead, so the choice is no longer which garment the shoe belongs to but which part of a wardrobe it should join that day. The count has been climbing, too: the 2023 Made in Japan black pair came with two laces, black and white. Materials moved the other way. The BRASIL layered two suedes of different pile lengths over a grained-leather Formstrip, while the new pair holds to black throughout, with a long-pile suede and a nylon stripe.

That approach is typical of the label. BEAMS BOY launched in 1998, when American casual style was a big movement in Japan and many young women were already hunting through vintage stores for menswear that fit them. Its label director has described the goal as producing wardrobe pieces that can be loved for a long time rather than chasing trends, and the premise is to take the details and stories carried by men’s clothing seriously, then filter them through the label’s own eye. The collaboration is framed around the label’s concept, BASIC & EXCITING, and a shoe that takes black and the Suede as givens leaves the excitement to the laces.

flow

The Suede works as a blank page for collaborators partly because its history is so well documented. BEAMS‘ own notes trace the model to suede training shoes released in 1968, and PUMA’s own account of the shoe starts with an earlier model called the Crack. Wikipedia ties its early fame to Tommie Smith, who took off his shoes on the Mexico City podium during his raised-fist protest that year, and in 2020 PUMA produced a limited tribute of just 307 pairs, matching his 1968 bib number. In the early 1970s, New York Knicks guard Walt Frazier signed with PUMA and wanted a low shoe he could play in, which led to the Clyde. From there the shoe moved through breakdancing, skate, and basketball culture. More recently, PUMA introduced the Suede XL in January 2024, a bigger-soled, fatter-upper version that echoes the volume BEAMS has favored and contrasts with this pair’s unchanged proportions.

A top-down view of a pair of all-black Puma suede sneakers resting on a clipboard with grid paper, against a clean white background.

a second

BEAMS and PUMA have been trading Suede variations for years. The SUEDE MIJ BEAMS, a Made in Japan Suede with a bigger upper, tongue, and laces, arrived in navy in December 2022, pitched as Cool Japan with a sumo wrestler, kendama, a daruma doll, and a Mount Fuji prop in its visuals. It returned in black on February 24, 2023, both times at ¥21,450, with BEAMS BOY sizes of 23 to 25 cm added alongside the main line’s 26 to 30 cm. BEAMS also ran the model through SSZ, whose black edition at ¥26,400 used silver Formstrips and lace loops styled as legal-pad tags. BEAMS BOY’s own PUMA series then went quiet for three years before returning last autumn with the BRASIL, a 1970s model created for a Brazilian soccer great, finished in all navy and modeled on the label’s three-button blazer, with a Black Watch insole and a gold PUMA logo standing in for the blazer’s buttons. It sold from October 10, 2025 at ¥17,600, which is ¥2,200 more than the new pair. The release also falls in BEAMS’ 50th anniversary year.

fin

BEAMS BOY has spent recent months reworking other brands’ classics. WWDJAPAN’s archive of the label lists special orders for Vans, Timex, and Gregory: a sun-faded Authentic, a Camper rebuilt as a ring watch, and a revival of Gregory’s purple tag for the anniversary.

It also arrives in a busy stretch for the model in Japan. Other recent reporting includes an inflated-sil hue Suede, published October 6, and a third installment from Scye that arranges the Suede into two models, published September 11.