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New Balance 998 Ronnie Fieg & Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Broadacre City Chutney
New Balance 998 Ronnie Fieg & Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Broadacre City Chutney
Culture Note™
Origin
Released on 14 April 2023 and part of the 998 line. This release has a suede upper in Beige/Chutney. The 998 belongs to the 99x lineage, the premium end of New Balance that the 990 opened when it launched in 1982 after four years of development. That line was always about restraint, a runner engineered to be excellent and then coloured to be invisible. This pair inverts the second half of that idea. It is named for Broadacre City, a Frank Lloyd Wright planning concept, and it arrives through Ronnie Fieg, which places it in the part of the brand's collaboration programme built on designers and independents rather than mass celebrity. Chutney is a muddy olive gold, the colour of prairie brick and dry grass rather than sport, and it turns the 998 from a running shoe into an architectural reference you can lace up.
Utility
Chutney is a warm neutral that behaves like a colour, so build around brown and cream rather than fighting it. First recipe: ecru wide leg chinos, a brown knit polo and a tan chore jacket, letting the whole fit sit in one earth register. Second: washed black denim with a cream cable knit, where the olive gold becomes the only warm note in the outfit. Save them for dry days and considered occasions rather than commutes. Sizing is true to length, so choose the wider fitting if your foot is broad instead of buying up. Brush the nap in one direction with a soft crepe brush, protect it before first wear, and let mud dry fully before you touch it.
Influence
New Balance's collaboration programme runs through designers and independents instead of stadium famous names, which is why a shoe like this can be about an architectural idea rather than an athlete. That instinct got formalised when Aime Leon Dore founder Teddy Santis was appointed creative director of Made in USA in April 2021, treating the archive as a fashion line because the culture had already been treating it that way for a decade. The 99x runners had a parallel life in British terrace and casual dressing long before any of that, plain shoes read as coded rather than loud. An olive gold 998 tied to a planning concept sits precisely in that tradition.
Construction
A suede and mesh upper, layered in the 99x manner: soft nap on the panels that need to hold shape, open weave through the forefoot for air. The chutney tone sits across nearly the whole shoe, so the shape has to do the work that contrast usually does, and the block N reads as relief rather than a logo shout. The 99x platform's midsole logic is structure before softness, which is why these feel planted underfoot instead of springy. Multiple width fittings, the promise New Balance carried over from its arch support origins, matter more on a suede runner than a knit one, because a nap upper takes a crease exactly where you flex it and keeps it.
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Most asked questions
How we always
Guarantee the best prices?
Luxury marketplace
In luxury marketplaces, prices depend on demand — less popular items sell below retail.
Competition between sellers
Our 5,000+ verified sellers compete with each other, giving you the lowest prices.
Price comparison
We show you price comparisons across sellers so you always get better deals.
Helping sellers, helping you
We help sellers buy smarter inventory, so they can offer you better prices.
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