Step Aside 550 — Aimé Leon Dore & New Balance Reintroduce the T500
Fresh off Fall/Winter 2023's first delivery, Aimé Leon Dore reconnects with New Balance to introduce a new sshoe collaboration: the New Balance T500. 550 who?
New Balance's T500 sneaker initially launched in the 80s as a performance tennis shoe. Today, the revisited silhouette maintains its tennis-worthiness but leans more into the lifestyle side given that it's less technical than today's tennis shoes.
And who better to reintroduce the NB T500 than ALD, which singularly revived New Balance's retro 550 and made it a best-selling smash.
It's a perfect task for Aimé Leon Dore, which is all too familiar with bringing New Balance shoes rooted in performance into the realm of daily wear. Consider the ALD x NB 650Rs and collaborative 860v2 shoe that you can't wear 'til 2024.
Aimé Leon Dore enlisted a dream team to roll out the re-welcome mat for New Balance's T500, tapping tennis champ and NB ambassador Coco Gauff — who's everywhere these days — as the star with celebrated photographer Renell Medrano behind the lens.
In the reveal, the Aime Leon Dore's T500 shoes appear in classic, understated ALD-y colorways: red/white and green/white.
Crafted with fresh leather uppers, Aime Leon Dore's T500s look like a cross between the beloved 550 and CT302.
Aimé Leon Dore knows a thing or two about the former (it's got several 550 collabs under its belt). And the latter is another tennis-gone-lifestyle New Balance shoe that already received Coco Gauff's approval.
Fans can expect the Aimé Leon Dore x New Balance T500s to drop on Friday, September 15 on Aimé Leon Dore's website, alongside the latest Fall/Winter 2023 drop-off.
New Balance's T500 lacks the heft of the 550, which may make the new sneaker a comparatively tough sell for everyone who isn't an ALD devotee, especially when in-line iterations start rolling out. But you can bet that the ALD models will be an easy sell.
