JUNYA WATANABE CAN'T STOP REMIXING CLASSIC NEW BALANCES

Junya Watanabe loves him some New Balance. I know it, you know it, he knows it, we all know it. But Junya still wants to scream his sneaker adoration from the rooftops, hence the deluge of collaborative New Balances he's issuing for Summer 2023.

Part of Junya's enormous, collaboration-packed Spring/Summer 2023 collection (which featured, yes, Netflix caps and Keith Haring Levi's), the latest round of Junya Watanabe MAN and COMME des GARÇONS HOMME New Balances are quite retro and entirely excellent.

Admittedly, no one knows for sure whether or not Junya is still overseeing things at CdG HOMME. It does seem like Watanabe is in charge of the sub-label since Keiichi Tanaka stepped down, given how close its inclinations mirror his own design cues, but COMME des GARÇONS famously plays things close to the vest so, yeah, meh.

But who cares? We've got some handsome New Balances to discuss.

Far more interesting than Junya's recent fixation on the New Balance 574, which yielded not one but two collaborative sneakers, his SS23 New Balances include the Junya Watanabe RC30 — New Balance's current retro-hype shoe, co-signed by both AURALEE and Donald Glover — and the COMME des GARÇONS HOMME 580, an attractive, tonal suede take on the old school-inspired runner previously the focus of collaborations with Palace Skateboards and Stray Rats.

This is a guy whose footwear inclinations range from the super-simple to the pretty out-there, so it's always pleasant to see Junya's new shoes land on the side of wearable but still interesting.

He's got much more in-store, of course, already prepping a pair of Junya Watanabe x New Balance 650 high-top sneakers for Fall/Winter 2023, though utterly lacking the handsome colors that make this summer's shoes so visually appealing.

No hate, love Junya and all that, but always prefer colorful kicks to the kind of monochrome colorways we've seen from various CdG New Balances as of late