When New Balance introduced its 1906L loafer in January—at Paris Fashion Week through a collaboration with Junya Watanabe—people were understandably skeptical. The striking combination of a traditional New Balance sneaker silhouette and the build of an honest-to-goodness penny loafer seemed like yet another effort of fashion trolling, an attempt to whip up a social media frenzy based on eye-popping contrasts and an overtly impractical design. A critic at The New York Times called it “a meme first and a viable footwear option second.” The Cut used a French word to call it “pretty/ugly.” Would anyone actually wear these shoes?
There are several obvious reasons why the 1906L might be legitimately appealing as a shoe option. And it’s not, as some critics have wryly opined, for people who want to “run a marathon with a business-casual dress code” or “have a business lunch at noon and have a pickleball game at three.” This is clearly a lifestyle sneaker, not a would-be performance model, much as the original 1906R has outgrown its running roots to become a streetwear staple. Given that the cool kids these days are all trading their hype kicks for hard-bottoms, while professionals and politicians are doing the opposite, doesn’t it make sense to design a shoe that lands squarely in the middle? It’s easy to imagine the New Balance loafers looking right at home at a bar in Dimes Square—and they’re sure as hell an upgrade over the Allbirds that run rampant in Silicon Valley.
While the New Balance loafer sparked debate because of its unusual aesthetic, the silhouette is not nearly as bizarre as the initial reaction would suggest. Sneaker-dress-shoe mash-ups have been around for years, after all—this one just happens to lean further into the former, which I’d argue makes it the first successful hybrid ever. The shoe’s relative normality is especially apparent in the newly revealed brown-navy colorway, which looks more like a conventional shoe than the original silver version—something you would hardly balk at if a coworker turned up wearing it at the office. So what exactly is the audience for the 1906L? Same as ever, as far as New Balance is concerned: dads in Ohio and supermodels in London.
Read the full article here
