Asics launches $30,000 running shoes encrusted with rare pearls

Asics x Tasaki pearl running shoe
(Image credit: Asics)

Carbon plate super shoes can carry serious price tags (the $450 Adizero Adios Pro Evo sold out within hours earlier this year), but the latest design from Asics is possibly the most expensive road running shoe to date. The company has teamed up with Japanese jeweller Tasaki to produce a new line of pearl-encrusted GT-2160s.

There are various styles depending just how much bling you want on your feet, with prices ranging from ¥165,000 (about $1,000) to ¥4,411,000 (about $30,000). 

Designs range from a simple jewelled bar across the vamp, right through to a pair of shoes draped in a pearly net. Perhaps something to consider if you're thinking about getting married at a marathon.

As FootwearNews explains, these aren't your basic freshwater pearls. Instead, the shoes are decked out with akoya pearls, which are much rarer than freshwater pearls. Akoya oysters only produce a maximum of two pearls at a time, whereas a single freshwater pearl mussel can produce over 24 at once.

The fancy footwear is being displayed at Tasaki's Floating Shell exhibition in Tokyo on April 26, which marks the company's 70th anniversary and will feature many, where you'll also be able to get a good look at its pearl-strewn headphones and a pair of sunglasses topped with pearl eyebrows.

Cat Ellis
Editor

Cat is the editor of Advnture, She’s been a journalist for 15 years, and was fitness and wellbeing editor on TechRadar before joining the Advnture team in 2022. She’s a UK Athletics qualified run leader, and in her spare time enjoys nothing more than lacing up her shoes and hitting the roads and trails (the muddier, the better), usually wearing at least two sports watches.