BLACK COMME des GARÇONS has ditched its usual monochromatic playbook and gone full fluorescent with its new take on Nike’s classic LD-1000 silhouette. The fresh spin on the OG continues the shoe’s current hot streak, following a run of popular collaborative reimaginings by Sacai and Stüssy in 2024.

The LD (short for “Long Distance”) has seen countless iterations since it launched in 1977 as one of the brand’s first running shoes — designed by Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman, featuring a revolutionary “Waffle” sole modeled on his wife’s waffle iron — before sliding out of relevancy for decades. 

It was only through the popular Stüssy collab in 2024 that the sneaker began to regain its cultural heft after decades of being relegated to the secondhand market. While that drop featured colorways like Action Green and a quiet luxury-friendly Phantom beige hue,  it was the “Sanded Gold” model that really popped off: its mesh-and-suede gold upper contrasted sharply against a shock of electric pink on the double Swoosh and heel tab that now feels like a sartorial precursor to COMME’s latest iteration.

CDG’s take on the LD-1000 is far more aligned with the fashion label’s penchant for dipping classic Nike styles into all-black colorways, but adds a vibrant twist with a bold pink streak on the Swoosh, heel tab, and outsole. With its disruptive new take on the LD-1000, the CDG sub-label has fully broken out of the black-and-white binary that defines its DNA. Real fashion heads will remember that it was way back in 2009 that Rei Kawakubo founded the COMME offshoot — mid-financial crisis, when stocks were seeing red, not black — as an outlet for producing all-black, affordable versions of the brand’s staple styles. 

With its ongoing Nike partnership, the label has translated that ethos into a string of successful style: it stamped Nike’s famous Swoosh all over the Nike Field General 82 last fall, and in 2024, dropped a squeaky clean all-black Air Force 1 adorned with a simple “CDG” logo on one side and an avant-garde rendition of “BLACK” on the other.

The LD-1000’s black-and-pink colorway feels like an experiment in opening up from one of fashion’s most famously restrained brands — and the response is clear. With an approachable price tag of around $110, the shoe is already running toward sell-out status. Half the sizes have already scooped up, ensuring that this iteration continues the elderly sneaker’s reputational renaissance.