Junya Watanabe, man of many collaborations, keeps ’em coming for his Spring/Summer 2025 menswear collection, debuted in Paris on June 21. It’s Watanabe’s ongoing New Balance sneaker designs that have me most intrigued, however, as Watanabe’s SS25 New Balance 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.
Part of the COMME des GARÇONS designer’s far-reaching SS25 Junya Watanabe MAN collection, which also stitched together collaborative Versace scarves and plenty of Watanabe’s signature textural patchwork, Watanabe’s SS25 New Balance shoe is fantastically flat.
Watanabe’s new NB shoe is so subtle, in fact, that the 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.
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, design traits clearly shared by Watanabe’s flattened NB sneaker.
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 there may be more in store, knowing Watanabe. But expect more to be revealed only as we near the start of 2025, as Watanabe’s next menswear collection begins to hit stores.