WHY ARE NEW BALANCE GRS AS GOOD AS ITS COLLABS?

This graph is not for a Travis Scott, it's not for a dunk collab, and it's not for an OG Jordan 1 colourway. This graph shows the sales for a general release New Balance 2002R. Style code M2002RDA, commonly known as New Balance 2002R Protection Pack ‘Rain Cloud’ but should more be accurately named the New Balance 2002R Refined Future ‘Rain Cloud’ as per the designer Yue Wu intended. Yue Wu’s design for this general release sneaker that retailed for $150 but now goes for thousands.

YUE WU

Yue Wu is a footwear designer at New Balance Lifestyle, it was his design language that led to the popular Refined Future series which was applied to various popular New Balance models. This design language became widely popular but became more and more available due to being a New Balance general release.

Even though these shoes might be in a ton of sneaker collections, at the door of a general member of the public, or even owned by avid sneakerheads, many don’t know who the mastermind behind this design is. The designs that he has produced for New Balance including the Refined Future series, the 1906 polka dots, various 610 colourways, and man 9060 colourways just to name a few, have had different degrees of popularity but have done a lot for New Balance's credibility and helped the brand gain more market share over the past few years.

New Balance is not afraid to put good designers on payroll and hire them internally, whether they are slightly unknown but still bring a fresh load of design language such as Yue Wu, or if they have a bit more influence and are more known such as Teddy Santis.

TEDDY SANTIS

Teddy Santis is the founder and creative director for Aimé Leon Dore also known as ALD which he founded in 2014. Over the 10 years of ALD, the brand has slowly grown to a powerhouse which has not only gained an investment from LVMH in 2022 but has also done projects with brands like Clarks and New Balance.

New Balance cleverly approached Teddy Santis in 2017 in hopes of building a long-term relationship with Santis has helped both ALD and New Balance alike. As I stated before, New Balance isn’t afraid to hire good designers internally, in February 2022, Teddy Santis was made creative director of New Balance’s popular ‘Made in USA’ line.

The ‘Made in USA’ New Balance line is a higher class of general release in which the products have a higher retail cost as a majority of the shoe manufacturing process is all kept in the USA. Due to this, these products are also more highly produced than said a collaboration pair would be but not as many as a general release manufactured offshore.

New Balance does not actively stamp his name across all the ‘MADE in USA’ lines but due to his name being recognisable in the sneaker community,  you can go on any resale website such as StockX and Teddy Santis will be a keyword attached to any ‘MADE in USA’ GR products that have been released since him becoming the creative director.  

It’s for designers such as Teddy Santis and Yue Wu who are the semi-silent killers that have made New Balance GRS as good as its collabs.

They have brought a new flavour and design language that is more attainable to the public and for a fraction of the price compared to other collab pairs.