crooked tongues magazine News Features

Around this time in 2008, we scratched our heads at the amount of light brown New Balance boxes we'd stacked up. It wasn't like the contents were particularly outlandish either - plenty of 1500s, 576s and 1300s, but people just didn't seem interested. Eventually we shifted them, but if we'd known, we would have put them on ice in the corner of the warehouse and broken them out as "deadstock" in 2012. A lot changed in four years. Now the 1300 is a big deal. We love the UK-made edition of the shoe, but all eases seem to be on the US-made variation— the 2010 version for New Balance JP that had a few folk baulking at the price tag doesn't seem such a dopey investment in retrospect, does it? Since then we've seen a gradual ascent for the brand's lifestyle offerings, with the American 1300 taking back its position at the top of the tree as the running shoe that redefined the RRP of athletic footwear. You had to be someone with some serious coin to be shelling out $130+ on a pair of trainers in late 1984 (taking inflation into account that makes these and the adidas Forum, staggeringly expensive) and we can totally understand how they ended up on the feet of NYC and Baltimore hustlers with expendable income. Who needed endorsements with those guys creating a market for this shoe?

If you've ever put a pair of these on in any of the neutral shades they work best in, you'll know that they're about as comfortable as a shoe gets, and they can be worn with pretty much anything. The fancy Dans out there can wear them with their flower prints and the XXL sweat kids can floss in a pair too. U-God might get some stick for his solo work, but that guy rocked 1300s immaculately back in 1994 Wu press shots, even though Rae seems to get the NB associations. The dark grey New Balance 1300DG is a serious piece of footwear — stark-looking, stealthy and carrying more cultural credentials than many brands can muster in their entire output. Even the little things, like the piping on the tongue, tick the right boxes, All credit is due to New Balance for just putting this beauty out there, sans silly campaigns — could it be that running shoe design peaked when this shoe dropped, and we've just been treading water with daft placebo technologies ever since? As you'd expect from the US factory, the quality here is immaculate and enough to put bigger brands to shame. Why can't all releases be this good? This colourway arrives in the Crooked Tongues store in a couple of days (after a slight delay)…