New Balance Xc-72 Black

Released on 3 September 2021 and part of the XC-72 line. This release has a suede upper in Phantom/Black/Interstellar. XC stands for cross country, and no brand has a better claim to it. New Balance's competitive breakthrough was the Trackster in 1960, the first running shoe offered in varying widths, which spread through YMCA fitness programmes and college cross country teams at MIT, Tufts and Boston University. The XC-72 is a design study built on that inheritance, a lean, low, seventies flavoured running shape rather than a literal reissue of any single model. In black it is stripped of the earthy colour blocking the style is usually given, which changes the shoe entirely: the retro proportions stay, the nostalgia cues go, and what is left reads sharp and modern rather than vintage.