New Balance 574 'Black Bleached Lime Glow'
Colorway: Black/Bleached Lime Glow · Style code: ML574IDC · Release date: May 19, 2021 · Price: $2452 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: New Balance 574 'Pennant Pack' (ML574) · New Balance 574 'Incense' (ML574AA2) · New Balance 574 'Natural Indigo Maple' (ML574AB2) · New Balance 574 'Rain Cloud Maple' (ML574AC2) · Alpha Industries x New Balance 574 'Sedona Seige Grey' (ML574AI2)
The green is doing exactly one job. Bleached Lime Glow is a neon pulled back until it reads closer to pale citrus than to a highlighter, and against an all-black textile upper it works as a marker rather than a colour: enough to catch light at the N and the branding, not enough to change what the shoe is. The textile matters too, because a woven upper holds a flat black far more evenly than suede, which goes grey wherever it is brushed.
New Balance released the pair on May 19, 2021 at $85. The heel unit is ENCAP, soft foam with a rigid polyurethane collar around it, and it is the part of the shoe that has not changed since the model's first production run. Black with a single accent suits the 574 for the same reason busier colourways do: the upper is broken into so many small pieces that one bright tone can be assigned to a single piece and left there. The result behaves like a plain black sneaker at a distance and only shows its detail up close.