The New Balance Terrace Mule is one part performance-oriented football boot and one part puffy house shoe. And if that sounds like a strange combination of designs, it’s because it is — I’ve certainly never heard of such a shoe. 

New Balance’s latest mule has an upper that takes inspiration from '00s-era football boots (or, soccer cleats, as they’re called in America), a time when fold-over tongues, off-center laces, and flashy colorways became the norm for every new football boot.

This was a period of experimentation that caused a sharp downfall in players using the simple leather football boots that had been the standard till that point. And New Balance's Mule dresses up as a football boot from that era.

The shoe especially seems to take notes from the Nike T-90, a legendary football boot that Nike is planning to bring back from the archives, and Acne Studios also recently created a dupe of.

This mule-ified football shoe will be released on September 7 via New Balance stores in Asia. Unfortunately, for those outside of Asia, no release information has emerged. 

It was only last week that I reported on how fashion’s Y2K football boot obsession was getting weird and now, arguably the strangest of the football-indebted sneakers has arrived.