Loro Piana & New Balance Prove Dad Shoes Can Be Quiet Luxury
Dad shoes just got even cooler. New Balance, the brand that made fatherly footwear fashionable, is teaming up with Loro Piana on a collaborative sneaker worthy of the richest grandpa you know.
After weeks of speculation surrounding a potential collab between the two brands, Loro Piana's chief marketing officer Chris Davis confirmed the news: Loro Piana is bringing its famously sumptuous materials to New Balance's 990v6.
Instead of your usual mesh and leather upper, these ultra-premium New Balances are made with Loro Piana's signature Pecora Nera wool, which the Italian brand, the face of the "quiet luxury" movement, sources from a dedicated partner farm in New Zealand.
Succession-level wealth is a pre-requisite for this release — launching at Loro Piana boutiques on September 5, the collaborative New Balance sneakers are priced at $1,500 a pair.
New Balance has ventured quite a bit deeper into the luxury space as of late.
Last summer, we saw Stone Island lend its experimental fabrics to a collaborative New Balance 991v2, for instance, while in March, Miu Miu's leather New Balance 530 shoes hit the runway, cementing our taste for flat-soled shoes. And we can't forget Junya Watanabe's New Balance M1906 sneaker-loafers.
As Fashion Month approaches, we're expecting to see more high-fashion New Balance collabs debut on the catwalk, though perhaps none quite as monied as those envisioned by Loro Piana.
As for Loro Piana, the label is well-versed in the art of the dad shoe. For years, the brand has been producing some of the highest-end grandpa steppers money can buy (sans any branding, of course).
In short, a Loro Piana x New Balance footwear collab makes perfect sense.
That said, we'll offer the following disclaimer: You probably won't want to run a 5K in these.
