PUMA Cabana

• MODEL: PUMA CABANA
• TYPE: RUNNING
• MADE IN: TAIWAN

The clean, quiet, and classy PUMA Cabana runner carefully makes its way back into our German trainer archives over here at eatmoreshoes, leaving almost no trace behind to help us find their history.

Neither these nor their vintage Junior version we previously featured help to shed any light on when they’re from, or what their model name might mean. We elaborated on that in our other article at length, and for now we’d like to leave those musings of etymology alone, to rather explore what the future holds for this delicate runner’s choice.

Upon a quick search either in-person or online one can easily stumble into the realm of countless Cabana remakes and re-issues, a lot of which appear quite close the original, spewed out in a plethora of color choices that shock and awe in comparison to this cool grey and blue OG. Just like the Junior (mentioned above) what we loved most about the vintage Cabana colorways is the simplistic and quiet nature the hues imbued onto the silhouette itself. Keeping the upper away from combinations that heavily contrast or clash helps to further highlight that wonderful red cut seeped deep into the midsole. That, and the sole unit appears to float below the body.

All these parts stack up to provide a shoe that just looks fast – and yet light – even motionless on the shelf. At a time (definitely pre-2000, probably even pre-90s too, though it all depends on exactly when PUMA moved their production to Taiwan) when a lot of trainers were released in mostly white versions with small and bright color hits here and there it was a step out in a new direction to put together something like this, that played with shades and subtle emotional shifts. Such a design could be a risk, one might even go so far as to say. But for what it’s worth we’d love to see these come back in their true blue form, if they haven’t already somewhere.

written by Dylan Cromwell

photography by errol