Your cool-girl summer shoe search stops here. GANNI is releasing a collab sneaker with New Balance that’s made for running — or jumping, or sprinting, or, inexplicably, competing in baguette-relays — around the city.
I, myself, am not a Scandi girl, nor have I ever been to Copenhagen (one day!), but there’s something mesmerising about the orbital pull of the city that draws out all the gelato pastel stops; the bleached blonde highlights; the trapezes dresses, worn Man Repeller-style — with dad shoes.
GANNI, headquartered in Copenhagen, is a mecca for the sort of carefree, it-kind-of-shouldn’t-work-but-it-really-does Scandinavian dressing that’s made prior sartorial pariahs like New Balance dad sneaks Good Again. Like what Phoebe Philo did for Stan Smiths; what legions of festival girls did for bucket hats; what the churn of time did for baggier cuts of denim. The alchemic gesture of turning bad into good, turning gauche into cool is a kind of superpower.
Said to be “inspired by the everyday athletics of modern city life,” the GANNI x New Balance sneaker zeroes in on the NB 2002R style, but updates it in typical GANNI fashion. Bright colours (see: Island Green), sweet details (see: the double pull tabs shaped in a heart), and really good prints.
GANNI x New Balance 2002R:
“I am such a big fan of New Balance, I’ve been wearing them since forever,” said Ditte Reffstrup, Creative Director of GANNI in a statement about the collaboration. “The NB 2002R style really fits into the Copenhagen way of dressing — we’re always cycling and running somewhere. This shoe is the perfect mix of function and fashion. It’s a huge honour to put a GANNI spin on such an iconic New Balance shoe and we are super excited to be able to create it with so much innovation and recycled material.”
The “innovation” as dictated by Reffstrip calls to the collab sneaker’s adherence to New Balance’s new “green leaf standard”, which asks for footwear made from at least 50% or higher environmentally-preferred materials on the upper, and at least one environmentally-preferred ingredient in the sole. The GANNI x NB 2002R sneaker, made with 80% recycled content synthetic overlays, 100% recycled content mesh and a 5% regrind rubber outsole, hits the mark on all accounts — including GANNI’s own strict ethical standards which saw 92% of their Spring/Summer 2022 collection made from certified organic, recycled, proven lower-impact materials.
Released in cream white and grey, this GANNI x New Balance collab is ripe for whatever prancing, frolicking and cavorting that might be in the works this coming summer. And if you need some inspiration, look no further than the campaign imagery, which sees models really espousing that “everyday athleticism” brief by doing all sorts of athletic feats — mattress-pouncing, shoulder-riding, baguette relays alike — wearing, of course, the sneakers in question.
Keep scrolling for the GANNI x New Balance campaign
The GANNI x New Balance 2002R sneaker, priced at HK$1,299, launches on 15 April. Get them here.
Header and featured images courtesy of GANNI and New Balance
The post New Kicks: #GANNIGirls love New Balance sneakers, so GANNI x NB became a thing appeared first on Lifestyle Asia Hong Kong.
