New Balance’s Loafer Lineage Is Expanding
The black New Balance 1906L loafer is here and that can only mean one thing: The hybrid shoe agenda is here to stay. (Sorry to the sneaker-heel haters out there.)
Famously techy, the 1906L — the loafer iteration of New Balance's 1906 sneaker — has a textile upper with shiny black accents and a rubber sole. It's durable, practical and captivatingly perplexing.
The mesh upper and rubber sole have the sporty cadence of a sneaker, but that loafer build is very 9-5 coded — a wonderful fusion of opposing style concepts. It also pairs very well with the enduring corpcore movement. Sweet serendipity.
And TBH, if a shoe doesn't make you furrow your brow in confusion, is it even worth wearing? I think not.
Now, if the words "sporty-chic" or "business casual" fire up your sartorial senses — then this loafer-hybrid has likely been on your radar for the better half of a year.
But even the uninitiated have likely come across this sporty loafer online since its arrival was heavily discussed and, in some cases, dreaded long before a release date was given.
In an era of fabulously appalling shoe supremacy, though, digital backlash is lowkey an indicator of a shoe's potential star power.
Don't get it confused, though, the anticipation for this beautifully confused sneaker was high, and it took a (frustratingly) long time to even get an initial release date. At one point, all we had were runway easter eggs that suggested something was coming soon.
(Shout out to Junya Watanabe!)
New Balance has more than made up for this, though, with near back-to-back releases that include a metallic silver iteration released in September and now the black 1906L, which will be available on December 3.
Sporty business fans — we are so up right now.
