New Balance XC-72 'Black Grey'
Colorway: Black/Grey · Style code: UXC72GBG · Price: $95 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: New Balance XC-72 'Black Castlerock' (UXC72MB) · New Balance XC-72 'Black Moonbeam' (UXC72DA1) · New Balance XC-72 'Black Angora' (UXC72QG) · New Balance XC-72 'Triple Black' (UXC72SC) · New Balance XC-72 'White Black' (UXC72SD)
The XC-72 is not a reissue of anything. Charlotte Lee designed it by treating the 1970s as a set of intentions rather than a set of shoes: she went through the New Balance archive and also through what car designers of the period were drawing, and decided that the Gator, an archive model of the era, already worked like a concept car.
What came out is a low running silhouette with the corners left sharp. The toe is squared rather than rounded, a hard line runs forward through the front of the shoe, and the tongue is shaped after the racing tongues of period competition models. Three different tread patterns sit on the outsole. Held together, the result reads as a 1970s idea of what a fast shoe would look like in the future, rather than as a 1970s shoe.
In plain black and grey the geometry does all of the work, since there is no colour blocking to break up the shape.