Junya Watanabe's SS25 New Balance Shoe Barely Exists
Junya Watanabe's ongoing New Balance sneaker designs that stand out the most of the many, many collaborations debuted as part of the Japanese designer's Spring/Summer 2025 collection on June 21. Notably, though. Watanabe's SS25 New Balance Minimus UX200L shoe is unlike anything that came before — and that's saying something.
Remember that Watanabe's previous menswear collection introduced the world to the sneaker-loafer by way of a terrifically forward-thinking New Balance 1906 slip-on shoe.
New Balance may not have designed that sneaker specifically for Watanabe but his elegant workwear-meets-tailoring design language was the perfect venue with which to introduce it.
Now, here we are mere months later and Watanabe has worked out another wonderfully weird New Balance shoe that is somehow still within his wheelhouse.
Truly, Watanabe's SS25 New Balance shoe is fantastically flat.
It was revealed as part of the COMME des GARÇONS designer's far-reaching SS25 Junya Watanabe MAN collection, which also stitched together collaborative Versace scarves and imposing Oakley shoes.
Watanabe's new NB shoe is so subtle, in fact, that his Minimus UX200L sneaker barely exists, hidden beneath billowing slacks and jeans.
It's a particularly understated silhouette that immediately recalls the MT10 shoe recently revamped by Issey Miyake's Homme Plisse design team.
Also part of New Balance's Minimus running shoe line, that sneaker was designed to achieve a barefoot feel through a foot-wrapping upper and barely-there outsole.
As they're part of the same line, you can see that Watanabe's flattened NB sneaker shares many of those same traits and, similarly is only available in white and black colorways.
Compared to his other shoe collabs as of late, which have ranged from comparably sporty NB shoes to beefy HOKA slip-ons, Watanabe's newest shoe is by far the flattest piece of footwear he's cooked up yet.
And, knowing Watanabe, this may very well be the start of a trend.
