Protect Pours a Slushie Gradient Over Salomon's ACS Next

The Protect x Salomon ACS Next Slushie is the London label's first shoe with Salomon, and it went on sale on October 28, 2026 at 6 PM London time at protectldn.com, with some outlets also listing select retailers. It is the second ACS Next release in under a month, which makes the case that Salomon is running this model as a canvas for other people's ideas and not as a shoe with one fixed identity.

The argument has three pieces of evidence and one counterpoint, and the colorway is where it starts.

Lava Falls, Cyber Yellow and Strong Blue

The Slushie colorway is named Lava Falls and Cyber Yellow, with Strong Blue listed as a third note, and it is built around gradients meant to look like a frozen drink. Sole Retriever describes a metallic silver foil toe running across the toe box and down the side panels, cherry red mesh that shades toward blue raspberry near the midsole, and more blue on the front half of the midsole. It comes in unisex sizing under style code L45490900.

Pricing was not announced in the launch coverage. Sole Retriever and two other outlets said the retail price was still to be confirmed, while one retailer listing shows 140 pounds. Treat that figure as unconfirmed. Outlets also disagree on the model name: Protect and Hypebae write ACS Next, while Sole Retriever and the Feid coverage write ACS NEXXT.

Feid Got the ACS Next Three Weeks Earlier

Salomon released the ACS NEXXT with the Colombian artist Feid, in a black colorway with bright green on the heel and outsole called The Green Star, style code L45506800. Hypebeast reported a global launch on October 10 through Salomon and select retailers at 150 dollars; Sole Retriever and StockX list October 5, after in store releases at the Salomon New York City store on October 2 and 3. The sources disagree on the date and agree on the price.

That release changed the shoe in ways a colorway swap does not. It replaces the ACS Pro's TPU cage with leather and adds carbon fiber style forefoot paneling. It is not confirmed whether Feid helped design those changes, but the first ACS Next release already read as an edit of the ACS Pro, and Protect's version arrived on that base 18 to 23 days later depending on which launch date you trust.

Four Salomon Collaborations in Four Weeks

Protect's drop landed in the middle of a stacked fall for Salomon. MM6 Maison Margiela and Salomon opened their Fall Winter 2026 window on October 22, the pair's third release window since October 2025, with the MM6 Crossderby, an XT Boot and ACS Pro 3 colorways in it. On the same day as Protect's launch, October 28, Salomon and L'Art de l'Automobile released the XT Quest 2 in nubuck, a partnership that started in 2022 and includes a June 2024 Porsche 911 GT1 tribute on the Speedcross 3 and XT 4 OG.

Earlier in the year, A Cold Wall and Salomon reworked the ACS Pro with a floating cage, asymmetric lacing and a Matryx Kevlar mesh upper, which went on sale July 1, 2026 at 220 dollars and then returned in a limited window on HBX. Five partners since July, on at least four different Salomon bases, is a pattern. Salomon does not hand a partner a finished product and ask for a logo. It hands over a platform, and the partner decides how much of the shoe to rebuild.

Protect Changed the Paint and Left the Chassis

Protect's version, on the evidence of the launch coverage we found, is a colorway and a finish and not a rebuild. No outlet reported a new upper, a new cage or a new midsole compound, and Style Guru and aLuxury both said their reports carried no technical specifications beyond the ACS Next base. Against Feid's leather swap and A Cold Wall's Kevlar mesh, the Slushie is the lightest edit of the three, and that is the counterpoint to the argument: a platform needs partners who use it, and this partner used the paint.

That distinction matters for a London label stepping into its first Salomon release. A colorway collaboration is the cheapest way for a streetwear brand to test whether its name moves a Salomon, and the foil toe and blue raspberry gradient are built to read well in photos, and they do nothing for how the shoe walks.

Six O'Clock in London, No Spec Sheet

The Slushie went on sale with a name, a time and a web address and without a published weight, stack height or price in most coverage. The ACS Next sits on the ACS Pro lineage, which is two decades old and which Salomon marked with a 20 year anniversary edition in December 2025.

What the Slushie did have was a fixed clock. At 6 PM London time on October 28 the shoe went live on Protect's own site, and a label that sells direct online at a set hour controls its own sell through numbers, which is the one figure nobody has reported yet.