KITH's New Balance 1906 Is a Technical Marvel
KITH and New Balance are on their own collaborative rolls, which includes several of their own excellent sneakers in the past few months alone. But 2023 ain't over yet and there's another KITH New Balance coming our way before 2024, it seems.
Hey, I ain't complaining, especially if the collaborative shoes keep lookin' as good as the forthcoming KITH x New Balance 1906r shoes, two technical-looking sneakers that intelligently riff on the 1906's Y2K inclinations (even though the shoe was first released in 2009).
KITH's New Balance 1906 is dressed in two colorways. The standout is a slick black look that suits the runner's retro aesthetic, but the key factor here is that it's ringed with gold accents, a potentially tacky touch that's KITH uses so sparingly that it actually becomes quite tasteful.
Not that you could ever accuse aesthetic-conscious KITH of tackiness, of course, but that Ronnie Fieg's inimitable retailer can bend the potentially OTT combo like black and gold to its whim is merely demonstrative of KITH and Fieg's colorway mastery.
The other KITH x New Balance 1906 shoe is barely discernible in the first-look imagery but new looks presents a spin that's the tonal opposite of its darker collaborative sibling.
Sneaker leakers who offered a first look at KITH's New Balance 1906 collab obviously haven't offered an official release date (or even confirmation that these leaks are legit) but knowing how many plates KITH is constantly spinning on the sneaker front, not hard to imagine these being the real deal.
Fieg only just revealed KITH's latest New Balance collab, too, a delicious 990v6 two-pack that's actually a Madison Square Garden tie-in. Between the two 990v6 shoes, there's a clear winner: the gently colorful KITH x New Balance "Sandrift" colorway that impressively combines earth tones and pops of primary colors in a way that's advanced but utterly wearable.
KITH has a habit of steering clear of technical New Balances shoes; in fact, many of its sneaker collabs lean into old-school runners laden with suede or crisp grain leather. That doesn't meant that KITH shies away from functional footwear entirely — or at least functional-looking footwear — but its bread and butter is always gonna be those organic shoes.
Still, KITH's NB 1906 is solid proof that it can handle a shiny mesh sneaker as well as any chunky '90s walking shoe. Good timing, too: the New Balance 1906 is the subject of a few other solid team-ups that take the classic sneaker in other directions but always nice to get to the NB dad shoe's charmingly uncool roots.
