APL Launches Into Lifestyle Space With Nostalgia ’87

The shoe design is based on court sports of the 1980s, but it features cutting-edge technology.

APL (Athletic Propulsion Labs) is getting into the lifestyle space.

The buzzy performance footwear brand created by twin brothers Ryan and Adam Goldston is launching Nostalgia ’87, a new silhouette with a retro design based on court sports of the 1980s.

But in typical APL fashion, the shoes also boast cutting-edge performance features including a handcrafted upper in tumbled full-grain leather panels, precision-cut floating trim that creates sharp, clean lines and a lightweight, engineered cup sole paired with full-length, nitrogen-infused internal HySpeed patented performance midsole technology. The styles also offer the APL Soufflé Sockliner for comfort and there is an 8 millimeter drop from the heel to the forefoot to place the foot in a natural position.

“We’ve been developing and thinking about this for two years,” said Adam Goldston. “We were born in 1987 and we’ve always been inspired by court sports, so we developed something authentic to APL that looks like it could have existed yesterday, but with today’s technology. It represents everything we are as a brand.”

The hero technology in the shoe, they said, is the midsole that drops into the outsole. “Nobody else has done that with a leather outsole,” Adam Goldston said.

“It looks one way from the outside but the inside features the comfort and performance our consumers know us for,” Ryan Goldston added.

On the lateral side of the shoe, the company’s initials are disguised in the pattern. APL is also embossed on the tongue and heel. “We were subtle in the way we approached [the branding,]” Ryan Goldston said.

The Nostalgia represents a new category for APL and will be expanded upon in the future, they said. Although the shoe can be used to play tennis or any other sport, the brothers expect it will appeal to most consumers for its lifestyle design.

“It’s our entry into lifestyle — but through performance,” Adam Goldston said. “We expect it will have a broader lifestyle appeal because of the way it looks so it’s our first toss of our hat into that ring. We think it will draw a lot of new customers to APL.”

“It’s different from anything else in our line,” his brother added.

The shoes, which are available in four colorways, retail for $430 for either men or women and will be available exclusively at the AthleticPropulsionLabs.com website and the company’s flagships in New York and Los Angeles. It is priced just below the HySpeed model, which retails for $450.

Although they launch on April 16, APL teased the model on social media about a month ago and already has a sizable waitlist to purchase the model.

“They’re handcrafted so supplies will be limited in the beginning,” Adam Goldston said. But going forward, they expect Nostagia will become a mainstay of the APL collection. “When we design something, we think of how it can sit in the collection for years to come,” Ryan Goldston said.

Even though it took so long to develop and quantities will be limited, the Goldston’s said they’re already working on other innovative products to add to their offering. “We have a big innovation pipeline and this is just one of them. You will see more things from us as a brand in the future. We’re just working to figure out the right time,” said Ryan Goldston.

Adam and Ryan Goldston created APL in 2009. They played basketball and football during college at the University of Southern California, but because they’re only six feet tall, they set out to create a shoe that would allow them to jump higher. They created the Concept 1 basketball shoe with an eight-spring Load ‘N Launch Technology that instantly increased vertical leap. The technology also drew the attention of the National Basketball Association, which banned its use for performance enhancing reasons.

But it also put APL on the map.

Since then, the company has has introduced a wide range of other footwear in the luxury performance segment of the market that is carried at some of the top high-end retailers around the world including Nordstrom, Selfridges, Net-a-porter, Mr Porter, Lane Crawford, Harvey Nichols and others. The brothers were the first two members inducted into the CFDA from an athletic brand.