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XT-EVO. XT-6 chassis. Liquid rubber cage. $200. Live on salomon.com. Brera event 25 September.
Salomon added a last to the XT family instead of another colorway of the old one. XT-EVO keeps the XT-6 platform and rebuilds everything you see from the midfoot up. Jumbo mesh stays. A liquid-rubber wrap puts ridges down the toe like a set of teeth. The tongue sits off-center, pulled toward the midfoot. quickLACE still disappears into the garage on the tongue.
The official unisex card is plain. $200. Article L45404200. Thirteen ounces. Ten millimeter drop. Agile Chassis over an EnergyCell midsole. Mud Contagrip outsole. Molded OrthoLite sockliner. Three line colors on the US shop: Black / Black / Asphalt, Black / Fiery Red / White, Alloy / Castlerock / FTW Silver. Japan boards also listed Storm / Dark / Grape Leaf as L45473800 for 2 September. Buy the six-digit code, not the nickname.
Kith showed two collaborative colors on 7 August inside the &Kin Fall 2026 rack. That was the sil’s first public hour. The in-line three follow on 2 September through salomon.com, the Brera store, and selected partners. Red, black, and grey in the launch copy is the house nod to an early XT-6 mix. The black and fiery red pair is the one that does that job in a photograph.
Signal. What happened: Salomon released XT-EVO as a new XT last. Exact product: XT-EVO, L45404200 family, jumbo mesh and liquid rubber on an XT-6 chassis. When and where: Kith 7 August, gen 2 September 2026, salomon.com and Salomon Store Brera, Corso Garibaldi 12. Price: $200, about $15 above the current XT-6. Source: Salomon product page. Why it matters: the trail last cities already stole gets a sculpted cage instead of another seasonal grey. Earlier DRIFT: none on EVO.

Four Salomon shoe floating against a deep red background, featuring black, grey, and a red/black colorway with aggressive, chunky treads.
stir
XT-6 made the jumbo mesh and the chassis famous, then watched sidewalks take both. Café floors. Show queues. That theft is the reason EVO exists. Salomon did not replace the sole. Agile Chassis still damps and holds. Contagrip is still a mud lug asked to live on pavement. quickLACE still hides in the tongue garage. Weight and drop sit on the same numbers as the sibling. Thirteen ounces is not a race flat. Ten millimeters is XT geometry.
The upper is the argument. Liquid rubber, a TPU the brand is willing to name, wraps the forefoot in a checkered grid at the eyestay and a run of sharp ridges toward the toe. Layering is visible on purpose. Lines are meant to look like they are still moving when the shoe is on a shelf. Asymmetry on the tongue and lace path is a design hit and a claim about easier on-off. Whether that is true is a foot problem. The photograph already believes it.
Black and fiery red does the heritage work. Alloy and castlerock do the quiet work. All black does the city work. Storm and grape leaf, if that JP card holds, is a fourth weather. The shoe will feel like an XT underfoot and look like a new last from the side. That split is the product.

XT-Whisper and XT-Pathway sit cheaper in the same family. XT-6 sits near $185. EVO’s extra fifteen dollars is the cage. If you wanted the old last you already had it. This pair is for people who liked the chassis and were bored of the upper.
Heikki Salonen, the new creative director, has said Salomon is not a fashion house. The line is useful and slightly comic, because XT-6 already left the mountain. EVO is how the brand answers that without printing a fashion week date on the tongue. Serious mountain hardware, still. A shell that photographs like speed. Both sentences can be true on one last.
scope
The site had the pair on 2 September. Milan Fashion Week is the second room. On 25 September the Salomon Store Brera at Corso Garibaldi 12 is slated as an immersive space for the campaign stills. Veronica Yoko Plebani, Paralympic athlete and speaker, is named as the guest. Movement as discovery is the language around her. The store is the Italian door. Selected partners fill the rest of the map.
Kith’s August pair was the preview, not the line. Do not mix those SKUs with L45404200. Collision sell first and sit in a different cart. The general colorways are the ones Brera will walk people through.
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fin
Mud Contagrip will still feel like a trail shoe on wet stone. That is the XT bargain people already accepted. EVO does not fix the lug for the city. It changes the face so the bargain looks new.
$200 is the number. Brera on the 25th is the room. The teeth are new. The chassis is not.


