For Years, Andrew Reynolds Thrashed New Balance Dad Shoes. Finally, He Got His Own
Long before New Balance Numeric ever existed, Andrew Reynolds was thrashing dad shoes. The Andrew Reynolds' New Balance NM933 sneaker is thus well-deserved, a marriage of elderly walking shoes and footwear designed with grip tape in mind.
Like all skaters who existed in the age before e-commerce, Reynolds was prone to skate whatever shoe he wanted, so long as it was comfortable and grippy. But only Andrew Reynolds was known for hitting the deck clad in New Balance's meaty walking sneakers.
The NM933 is Reynold's first-ever New Balance Numeric signature shoe, exclusively revealed here by Highsnobiety, and it's a knowing riff on the classic chunksters that Reynolds first shredded decades before even sneakerheads came around to their good looks.
"I made it a mix between a skate shoe and a runner," Reynolds told Highsnobiety. "When I'm skating in the park, people say, 'Oh, you're skating in runners?' And that's sick. That's what I was hoping for."
Skating a shoe not meant to be skatable is a subculture unto itself. The concept had enough gas to fuel a dedicated Jenkem series, the Gucci loafer being my personal favorite, and every freaky viral shoe that's come since has also inevitably been skated for sheer shock value.
But Reynolds' skateable New Balance dad shoe isn't a wacky one-off. It's a real-deal skate sneaker that just so happens to have more than a little runner DNA, a clever proposition with serious legs.
Reynolds' NM933 compresses an upper borrowed from New Balance's 99x sneaker series, with a profile sculpted for streamlining purposes. The sole similarly squashes 99x cushioning into a sleek streak of paneling that's still capped by a peek of black outsole that curves up and onto the mudguard.
A few of these small touches remain, like the smooth leather heel and stylized 933 branding, unevolved elements of the New Balance family tree passed down to a future offspring.
But the 933's thickly padded tongue and griptastically flat outsole make it clear that Reynolds designed a straight-up skate shoe.
It's a great, weird, wearable sneaker that's perhaps more uniquely Andrew Reynolds than any of his prior signature shoes, though the NM933 is also really just another great example of the New Balance Numeric winning streak.
New Balance's skate shoe imprint has designed several sneakers so good that they cross over to mainstream covetability, wearing handsome colorways too good to be relegated only to skate parks. But collaborations with contemporary skaters prove Numeric's devotion to its craft.
And no shoe speaks to craft more than Andrew Reynolds' New Balance Numeric 933, the product of pure purpose. This is a dad shoe worthy of The Boss.
