New Balance 574 'Light Grey Green Mismatched Heel Tab'
Colorway: Grey · Style code: U574WC2 · Release date: May 21, 2024 · Price: $126 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: 574 (U5747FE) · 574 (U5748DF) · 574 (U5748SB) · New Balance New Balance 57/40 'Lunar New Year - Black Poppy' (U5740CNB) · New Balance 57/40 'Lunar New Year - Eclipse' (U5740CNN)
Everything is grey except one piece. The suede upper runs a light grey with no second tone anywhere on the body, and then the heel tab arrives in green, deliberately out of step with the rest of the shoe. It is a small intervention and a calculated one, since the tab sits at the back where it is read from behind rather than head on, and a single mismatched element on an otherwise plain sneaker registers as intent rather than as error.
New Balance released the pair on May 21, 2024 at $90. Underneath sits the ENCAP heel, a soft EVA core inside a firmer polyurethane rim, the arrangement this model has run since it was assembled as the budget entry into New Balance's off-road 500 series. Mismatch as a design device works on the 574 more comfortably than on most shoes, because the upper already carries many separate pieces of material, so changing the colour of one of them looks like part of the pattern rather than a mistake at the factory.