For twenty-three years, A Bathing Ape and adidas have been making sneakers together, almost exclusively on lifestyle silhouettes. The Superstar. The Campus 80s. The ZX 8000. The Stan Smith. Every time, an archive model got the ABC camo treatment and collectors came running. June 27 changes that. The BAPE x adidas Adizero EVO SL is the first collaboration these two brands have ever done on a performance running shoe, and it arrives in two colorways that may be the most visually aggressive drop of the summer.
The Adizero EVO SL is not a throwback silhouette being dusted off for heritage appeal. It is adidas Running's highest-volume performance model from 2025 into 2026, built for serious training mileage. BAPE did not tone it down for the lifestyle crowd. They leaned in.
The Design Logic: Nothing Matches, and That Is the Point
KJ5751 is the headline pair. White engineered mesh base, hot pink blocking on the left shoe, sky blue blocking on the right shoe, gold Three-Stripes running down both. ABC Camo across the laces, collar lining, and insoles. The BAPE Shooting Star logo sits on the right shoe's lateral in sky blue, on the left shoe's medial in gold. Right midsole text: "A BATHING APE" in English. Left midsole text: "BATHING APE" in pink katakana. Adidas Trefoil on the left heel, APE Head logo on the right.
Every detail is split. Nothing is mirrored. It is a deliberate position on what a BAPE x adidas shoe should be in 2026 after two decades of collaboration: not a logo placement exercise, but a structural argument about identity and asymmetry.
KJ5749 takes the same split logic into a darker register: deep royal blue on the right shoe, dark green on the left, red laces, turquoise eyestay and tongue accents. Same mismatched branding placement, different energy entirely. Both colorways are unisex sizing.
Why This Collaboration Actually Matters
Longevity in streetwear collabs tends to produce diminishing returns. Brands put the same graphics on a rotating cast of silhouettes, collectors get fatigued, and the energy dissipates. The jump to performance running is a genuine reset. It tells you that BAPE is engaged with what adidas is doing at a technical level, not just renting archive silhouettes for ABC camo treatment.
According to Hypebeast's coverage of the drop, this marks the first time in the 23-year partnership that BAPE and adidas have collaborated on a performance running model. Previous collabs touched basketball, skate-adjacent lifestyle models, and every major archive runner. The EVO SL is the first genuine performance shoe.
Previous BAPE x adidas lifestyle collabs have typically resold at 50 to 100 percent above retail in the first month. The EVO SL's performance positioning complicates that: runners who want to actually train in it will compete with collectors at retail, which keeps secondary prices more honest than a pure collector drop. Expect StockX prices around $280-350 (roughly ₹23,500-29,400) in the first two weeks.
India Pricing and Where to Look
Retail is $200 USD, £170 GBP. At ₹84 to the dollar, that is ₹16,800 before India's import costs kick in. Add the 75% import duty and 18% GST applicable to imported footwear, and grey market or GOAT-imported pairs will land at approximately ₹35,000 to ₹42,000. That is steep for a running shoe, even a BAPE-branded one.
Adidas India has not confirmed a domestic listing, but their partnership with Myntra and Ajio means select high-demand drops sometimes appear without advance announcement. Check adidas.com/in, Myntra, and Ajio from June 26 onwards. The UK price of £170 (roughly ₹18,500) makes buying through a UK forwarding service meaningfully more cost-effective than waiting for grey market markup.
Stylistically: Mumbai and Bangalore will go hardest on KJ5751 — the pink, blue, and gold pair. Both cities reward footwear that demands explanation, and this one will get plenty of questions. Delhi tends toward KJ5749's darker, more controlled palette. Both choices work. Mismatched means something different depending on which foot you lead with.
Is the Import Price Worth It?
If you are buying it to run in it and you are fine explaining the shoes to every other runner you pass: honestly, yes. The EVO SL as a performance platform is genuinely capable. BAPE's version appears to retain the full construction, not a stripped-down lifestyle interpretation. A proper performance shoe with collector-grade detailing at $200 is reasonable value by the standards of the segment.
If you are buying purely as a collector piece: the resale trajectory on BAPE x adidas collabs is generally healthy but rarely explosive. These are not pairs that double in sixty days. They hold value and appreciate steadily. For an Indian buyer paying ₹38,000 imported, the appreciation curve needs to be quite steep before the math makes sense. Buy it because you want to wear it, not because you expect to flip it.
One practical caveat: the ABC Camo collar liner will likely fray faster than a standard mesh liner under real training loads. Reserve this pair for the sessions where being seen is part of the activity. For actual training kilometers, the standard EVO SL at $160 does the job without the collector tax.
BAPE x adidas Adizero EVO SL drops June 27. For the other big June 27 drop, see our piece on the JAIDE x Air Jordan 11 Low. And for Adidas in stock right now, browse Adidas at SNKRS CART.
Full details via Sneaker Bar Detroit's BAPE x adidas EVO SL breakdown.
