--- title: "Salomon XT-6 and How an Ultra Shoe Ended Up in Paris" url: https://quietmenace.com/sneakers/salomon-xt-6-gorpcore/ author: Quiet Menace Editors section: Sneakers published: 2026-09-01 updated: 2026-09-01 topics: Sneaker History, Collaborations, Outerwear, Streetwear --- # Salomon XT-6 and How an Ultra Shoe Ended Up in Paris > The XT-6 was built for runners racing a hundred miles through mountains. Then someone at Salomon found a box of them in the archive and changed the colors. In 2012, at Salomon's Advanced Week in Greece, the South African ultrarunner Ryan Sandes tested a new trail shoe. It became the S/LAB XT-6, and Sandes went on to wear it at the Western States 100, the Leadville 100 and Fish River Canyon. Within a decade the same shoe was on the walls of Dover Street Market and on the feet of people whose longest run is to catch a train. ## Built for Ultras The XT-6 came out of S/LAB, the Salomon team that builds shoes and apparel for elite trail athletes. Its family tree runs back through the XT-5 and XT-4 to the XT Wings. Patrick Leick, who runs Salomon's service to athletes, began customizing the original XT Wings for top runners, and he has described the six generations as small evolutions that kept what was working. The release year depends on who you ask. Salomon's own athletes were testing it in 2012, and many histories put the launch in 2013. Benjamin Grenet, Salomon's lead footwear designer, drew it. The full original name, S/LAB XT-6 Softground, spells out the brief. This was a shoe for mud and soft mountain ground, with enough protection for races that run through the night and well into the next day. The spec sheet explains the look. A SensiFit cradle wraps the midfoot, Quicklace cinches with a single pull, EnergyCell foam handles cushioning, and an aggressive outsole with multidirectional lugs grips mud and loose rock. The breathable mesh upper is caged in TPU overlays. In Salomon's telling, Grenet wanted the design to magnify the technology and make it visible, which is the same instinct that put a window in the [Nike Air Max 1](https://quietmenace.com/sneakers/nike-air-max-1-visible-air/). François D'Haene was one of the athletes who used it. His wins include the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc in 2012, 2014 and 2017 and the Diagonale des Fous on Réunion in 2016 and 2018, and he has said the XT-6 was among the first shoes he wore on the Salomon team. ![A person running along the top of a hill during the day](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518214598173-1666bc921d66?w=1600&h=1067&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop) *The XT-6 was built for long days on ground like this. Photo by Steven Lelham on Unsplash* ## From Annecy to Paris Salomon was founded in 1947 by François Salomon and his family in Annecy, in southeastern France, and made skis and then bindings long before it made running shoes. adidas bought the company in 1997, and the Finnish group Amer Sports took it over in 2005. None of that history pointed toward fashion. The turn came through Paris. In 2015 the boutique The Broken Arm collaborated with Salomon, and around the same time Jean-Philippe Lalonde, who had worked on Veilance, the city line from Arc'teryx, launched the Salomon Advanced division. Going through past seasons, he found a box of S/LAB XT-6s. His insight was about color. Take the shoe out of racing palettes, put it in muted or tonal ones, and it stops reading as race equipment and starts reading as design. A couple of years later Lalonde had the XT-6 in Dover Street Market. ## Why Did Fashion Want Trail Shoes? Part of the answer is comfort. Part of it is that technical gear looks honest in a way most sneakers no longer do. A shoe built to survive a hundred miles of Alpine trail carries a kind of authority that a retro basketball shoe, rereleased for the fortieth time, can't fake. That is the same logic behind the fleece revival we cover in [Patagonia Synchilla and gorpcore](https://quietmenace.com/style/patagonia-synchilla-gorpcore/) and the technical outerwear of the [Stone Island compass badge](https://quietmenace.com/style/stone-island-compass-badge-history/). The collaborations followed fast. Boris Bidjan Saberi worked with Salomon in the mid 2010s, and later partners included Comme des Garçons, Beams, Wander, Hidden NY, Carhartt WIP, Madhappy, End., KITH in 2022 and atmos in March 2023. MM6 Maison Margiela worked with the brand on its own shoe, the Cross Low. Our histories of [Kith and Ronnie Fieg](https://quietmenace.com/culture/kith-ronnie-fieg-history/) and of the [sneaker resale economy](https://quietmenace.com/culture/sneaker-resale-economy/) explain how a shoe goes from niche to sold out, and by 2023 Salomon pairs were trading on resale sites like any other hyped sneaker. ## The Shoe of the Moment The XT-6 works in a city for the same reasons it worked on a trail. It is light, it grips wet pavement, and the Quicklace means it goes on and comes off in seconds. Paired with wide trousers and a technical shell, it makes the look. With [Carhartt WIP workwear](https://quietmenace.com/style/carhartt-wip-workwear-to-streetwear/) it reads more practical than precious. If the [New Balance 990](https://quietmenace.com/sneakers/new-balance-990-history/) is the commuter's shoe, the XT-6 is the one for the weekend that might involve a hill. The loud racing colorways are still around, too, and they are worth a look for anyone who finds the tonal pairs a little too polite. Salomon tells the story in its own feature on the [XT-6, from trailblazer to fashion icon](https://www.salomon.com/en-ca/sg/a/the-xt-6-from-trailblazer-to-fashion-icon). The rest of the trail-to-street crossover is in our [streetwear](https://quietmenace.com/topics/streetwear/) archive and the [sneakers section](https://quietmenace.com/sneakers/). Pull the Quicklace toggle on a pair bought for the city and it does exactly what it did for D'Haene on the trails around Mont Blanc. One tug and the shoe is locked. --- Filed under: [Sneaker History](https://quietmenace.com/topics/sneaker-history/), [Collaborations](https://quietmenace.com/topics/collaborations/), [Outerwear](https://quietmenace.com/topics/outerwear/), [Streetwear](https://quietmenace.com/topics/streetwear/) Hero image: Photo by Venti Views on Unsplash (Unsplash License)