Before the purists chime in - this is not a diss - this is a question. I like NB’s just as much as the next person, just know that we’ve been here before. At least twice, as far as I know, and probably even more than twice if someone like @blucheez_llc has anything to say about it.
The last go around, I wanna say 2012-2015, New Balance heads were all about the 577’s, 996’s, 997’s, 998’s…the 1300’s and 1400’s…all anyone could talk about was the shape of the ‘Made in US’ and ‘Made in UK’ models…and…of course…’the materials’.
Yeah, I know I know. Soft suede, soft leather, great materials and shape. Every *notable* collaboration from that time period was on one of the models above. But I haven’t seen any of those models in the streets (or on IG) in YEARS.
What happened? Did people get bored? Did they need more stories? Or was it more just like a flash in the pan? A brief reprieve from the never-ending Nike machine?
I, for one, thought I was doing it. Copped all kinds of dope collab NB’s from the time. And then, seemingly overnight, nobody gave a sh*t about them. Like *NOBODY. Why? What happened? The quality didn’t change? The ‘storytelling’ was the same…why wasn’t New Balance *poppin* from 2015-2020?
And…now that we’ve seen another couple of interesting years from New Balance, how long can we expect people to stay interested?