New Balance 327 Kombu Desert

Released on 7 July 2023 and part of New Balance's 327 line. This release has a suede upper in Kombu Desert. Kombu Desert pairs a dark seaweed green with a warm sand tone, and on the 327 that combination does something specific. The shoe is built from the brand's seventies cross country and trail running shapes, where the outsole wrapped over the toe and the branding was drawn deliberately large, so it already looks like something designed for ground rather than for pavement. Putting a deep marine green against desert sand pushes it further into that territory, the palette of a shoe made to go somewhere. New Balance has been making running shoes in varying widths since the Trackster of 1960, and the 327 is the modern brand borrowing the proportions of that period without pretending to be a reissue.