What Made New Balance Sneakers Cool Again?

In 1906, an Irish immigrant called William J Riley founded the New Balance Arch Support Company in Boston, Massachusetts. In the beginning, the company focussed solely on manufacturing arch supports and accessories that were designed to improve shoe fit, but fast-forward to 2022, and it's on track to take over the world. In fact, New Balance has had such a big year, that its popularity is set to overtake some of the biggest players in the shoe game: TSS data showed them to be the third most popular brand on our site.

In what’s been an incredible year for the imprint, New Balance has managed to elevate its positioning, increase its mass appeal and build on its market share, all without losing its quintessential brand identity. This is no easy feat for any brand, but for New Balance it's been nothing short of a breeze. During the course of the year, New Balance has perfected its recipe, gathering all the ingredients necessary for success: selecting the perfect partners, repeatedly measuring its sentiment and impact, and crafting the highest quality products.

New Balance’s road to the top hasn’t always been without its pain points though. In fact, a couple of decades prior, it was struggling with its reputation. Known for years as being a dad brand (derogatory) it wasn’t really until it playfully embraced its reputation that things started to change. Its ‘Supermodels in London and Dads in Ohio’ 990v5 campaign is one of the most memorable sneaker campaigns ever, and allowed New Balance to lean into what was really special about the shoes it produced: the comfort, quality and versatility. Now, the brand has managed to leverage all of those things to create a much wider audience, with heavy-hitting silhouettes starring across all genres of the lifestyle category. Here, we unpick exactly what’s gone into the brand's success this year.

New Balance kicked off its year with an unbelievable start, as the brand’s 550 silhouette became a must-have sneaker. Its success was pretty unprecedented: New Balance had been looking to further its foray into the lifestyle market for a while, but with retro basketball models dominating the shelves for a couple of years, it had struggled to produce an offering to match the trend, with runners like the 990 making up the majority of its lifestyle category. It wasn’t until Teddy Santis stumbled across the Steven Smith-designed shoe in an old New Balance catalogue that he realised the brand was sitting on a gold mine. So, he brought it back for his ALD collabs, and the rest was history.

After selling out a couple of times over with ALD in 2020, the model was issued for a general release the following year. At the start of the year the style remained pretty low-key. Our data showed that the style received an average of just over 100 searches a month on The Sole Supplier, but by the end of 2021 it was a different story, as searches had shot up by 347%. New Balance entered 2022 with the tricky task of being able to meet the heightened demand, and for a long time, it was just as hard to secure a pair of 550s as it was a pair of Nike Panda Dunks (arguably the style’s biggest competitor). According to our data, the 550 is now the most popular New Balance style, accounting for over 40% of all New Balance purchases on The Sole Supplier site.

A departure from its running pedigree, the 550 proved that risks were worth taking. If the 990 was worn by supermodels, the 550 was the choice of social media influencers, and soon, just about every Instagrammer under the sun was flexing their pairs online. As a result, the resale prices saw the shoe triple in value. Towards the start of the year, the brand was clearly struggling to keep up with the insane demand, but as the months went on the shoe became more accessible as more colourways were produced. Though the increase in stock levels has led to them becoming a much easier cop these days (proving once again that scarcity is key when creating sought-after sneakers) the shoe’s classic styling still makes them a classic and timeless option that will certainly stick around for a while longer.

As well as capitalising on the basketball trend, New Balance is also well positioned to get ahead on one of the next big sneaker trends: retro running shoes. With running at the heart of the brand, it looks to be a pretty comfortable move for it, as it already has quite the archive of Y2K-inspired runners. This year, we saw the brand build on its existing 2002R offering, with another iteration of the Protection Pack, as well as versions that came kitted out in GORE-TEX for year-round wear, and the style became the third most successful New Balance silhouette on our site. As well as the 2002R, we were also treated to the revival of the 1906R, complete with a mesh upper and retro-style metallic detailing, and also the return of the 580 - a mid-noughties style with quite the cult following.

Though the brand manages to keep up with trends, it understands exactly when to leave them well alone, too. Part of the beauty of New Balance is that for the most part, they know not to tinker too much with things - it’s why they’ve ended up with so many classics. After all, why fix what isn’t broken? This approach to authenticity is one of the things that has really helped to define New Balance as a brand. Though new silhouettes like the 327 are ripe for success, the imprint is never afraid to dig into its archives in order to revive something that’s already helped to shape its DNA - something that Teddy Santis also did when he joined as Creative Director of the Made in USA line.

While his appointment was announced back in 2021, Teddy Santis’ first New Balance collection didn’t launch until the second quarter of 2022. His first project saw him release a number of 990 colourways over three of the models’ generations. This proved that the designer had a strong understanding and appreciation of the Boston brand’s history, as he looked to replicate the success he’d seen from reviving the 550 model by giving the 990’s older silhouettes a new lease of life.

Though a year in the making, they were absolutely worth the wait, with the initial pairs dropping in a very apt “Marblehead’ grey shade, and coming crafted from premium shaggy suede. Throughout this release and the pairs that followed, New Balance managed to capitalise on their existing 990 fan base and Santis’ cult following, expanding the market for its more expensive, premium offering and allowing the brand to elevate itself even further.

With factories in both the UK and USA, the imprint’s “Made” series is the hallmark of a premium-quality sneaker. These pairs rely on local sourcing and true craftsmanship, and the Flimby operation alone dates back 40 years. In 2022, the brand celebrated the anniversary of the tiny UK-based factory, where an average of 33,000 pairs are produced each week. Sounds a lot, but it's a much much smaller scale than most shoe factories. In factories like Flimby, each stage of the production line is overseen by skilled workers, with some elements even being hand stitched. It's a similar story over in the USA, where the brand has five factories, allowing them to produce its Made in USA collection on a much larger scale.

Now, scarcity is obviously a factor in the hype machine, but if no-one can get their hands on your product, your sales are going to suffer, and people will be more than ready to move onto the next thing. Domestic manufacturing means that New Balance can be quicker to get products to market, which means fewer stock issues and the ability to quickly respond to changing trends. These levels of stock accessibility has given the brand a huge advantage over some of the big players - as many of these still spent the first few months reeling from the fallout following the pandemic.

Furthermore, quality and comfort are two things that New Balance has pretty much always been synonymous with, and that comes down to both the build and the tech. As well as elevated touches from local factories, the brand relies heavily on its own N-ergy and ENCAP-infused midsole units, which are pretty much the reason why they were every dad’s choice in the first place. Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen consumers shift to prioritise comfort in their purchase choices. Spurred on by 2020’s lockdowns (when the New Balance 990 enjoyed quite the revival), New Balance seems to be at the forefront of many minds right now, with the brand's unrivalled comfort levels still leading the pack.

This focus on quality has made certain that the brand appeals to those consumers who are happy to pay a premium for its ‘Made’ sneakers. This ensures that New Balance stays at the forefront for fashion-savvy consumers, while also offering lower-priced options for those more inclined to opt for trending silhouettes over classics.

Alongside putting out some seriously strong general releases, New Balance’s collaboration strategy has also been top-notch. In a world where sneaker collabs have started to lose their edge, the imprint has worked hard to deliver special releases that still manage to capture its audience’s attention, by carefully curating its partnerships to ensure they’re 100% relevant. This year, the brand has linked up with the likes of Salehe Bembury and Joe Freshgoods, continued its long-standing partnership with minimalist design studio JJJJound, and helped to profile upcoming talent like Mowalola - and trying to cop any of them for retail is no easy feat. And, to appeal to the female fashion crowd, its carefully nurtured collabs with Casablanca, Miu Miu and Ganni across its 327, 574 and 2002R silhouettes. Aside from its fashion focus, New Balance has also looked to cultivate meaningful collaborations across its other divisions: a football partnership with Stone Island sold out in seconds, and was one of the most popular news articles on The Sole Supplier site, amassing 11k views in the two months before launch.

As well as their collaborative pairs, the brand also looked to invest heavily in their long-term ambassadors. Rather than rely on some tried and tested famous faces, New Balance opted to focus its efforts on a couple of key tastemakers within the fashion and music industry, which would sit perfectly alongside its lifestyle offering. Amongst those were Aminé (who just so happens to be friends with Salehe Bembury) and long-time fan Jack Harlow. On the sporting side, England internationals Raheem Sterling and Bukayo Saka also joined the team. By aligning itself with genuine brand fans and world-class talent, New Balance has once again managed to lean into its authenticity, as well as its long and successful history within the world of sportswear.

All of these things have added up to a seriously successful year in terms of sales, but the brand has also been killing it on social media, too. The New Balance account and New Balance Lifestyle accounts now have 6.6 million and 1 million followers on Instagram respectively, and over on TikTok #NewBalance has 1.3 billion views. #NewBalance550 alone has 257.5 million views, and the 530 sneaks in as a surprise silhouette with 58.6 million. At the time of writing, New Balance’s own official account boasts 205k followers and 2.1 million likes, with one single video of Raheem Sterling setting the pace with 27.1 million plays. Not bad at all for what was once considered to be a “boomer brand”.

It’s pretty clear that New Balance has managed to cement itself as a real break-out star over the past year or two, and judging by the data, that doesn’t look like it’s set to change anytime soon. With 116 years in the biz there’s every chance that the running label has finally hit its stride, resonating soundly with dads in Ohio, supermodels in London, and just about everybody in between.

If you liked this article, you can read more about these top New Balance silhouettes in our Discover series...