New Balance Tokyo Design Studio x Niobium Concept 1 'Steel'
Colorway: Steel/Nimbus Cloud · Style code: MSNB1GY · Release date: January 15, 2021 · Price: $338 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: New Balance RC1 Tokyo Design Studio Sneakers (MSRC1TBS) · New Balance RC_1300 Tokyo Design Sneakers (MS1300TF) · New Balance RC_2 Tokyo Design Studio Sneakers (MSRC2BB) · New Balance MT10T Tokyo Design Studio Sneakers (MT10TDS) · New Balance RC_2 Tokyo Design Studio Sneakers (MSRC2OB)
The Niobium Concept 1 is a boot with a hinge in its logic. A zipper runs around the heel section, and undoing it collapses the back of the shoe so the boot becomes a slip-on mule: hiking footwear on the trail, camp footwear once you have stopped. That conversion is the whole design brief, and the naming follows from it. Niobium is a light grey metal valued for being chemically stable while remaining easy to shape and reshape at low temperatures, which is a reasonable description of what the shoe is trying to be.
The components back the claim rather than decorate it. The upper is eVent, a waterproof membrane fabric that vents moisture outward. ABZORB, New Balance's long-running impact-absorbing midsole compound, handles cushioning. The outsole comes from the MT801, a trail unit rather than a lifestyle one.
This Steel version is the greyest reading of the idea, a near-tonal pair released at the start of 2021 at three hundred dollars, in line with the rest of the Tokyo Design Studio line.