New Balance 327 Rust Oxide

Released on 26 October 2023 and part of New Balance's 327 line. This release has a suede upper in Rust Oxide/Timberwolf. Rust Oxide is a burnt orange brown, a colour that reads as weathered metal rather than as a bright, and on the 327 it does something the brighter colourways cannot. This shoe is built from New Balance's seventies cross country and trail shapes, where the outsole climbed over the toe for protection and branding was drawn oversized, so it already looks like something made for ground. A rust tone finishes that thought. It suggests use and exposure rather than newness, which suits a brand that spent its first century selling shoes on fit and support rather than on appearance, starting from the arch supports it made in 1906.