Episode 13

Fast Fashion (ep 13)

How did a nondescript running shoe like New Balance become a millennial fashion statement? Topher Burns and Robert Balog explore the surprising intersections of atheltics, fashion, inequality, and barnyard animals.

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Show art & design by Chris Allen

Editing by Steph George

Marketing by Billy Silverman

Episode music by Blue Dot Sessions

Video editing by Patrick Elmore: https://www.patrickelmore.co/

Transcript
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Welcome to Strange Coordinates, this show where we use brands as roadmaps

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to arrive at surprising places.

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I am, as I hope you know, by now, to Topher Burns.

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I tr I just stepped all over your name.

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Topher and the one doing.

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fine.

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People know it.

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We hope they

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That's right.

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And, uh, this is the voice of Robert Balog.

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This is also Robert Balog himself.

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Along with ID on our partner, Topher and I are leading an

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ad agency called Territorial.

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We've spent our whole lives in advertising, helping the biggest and best

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love brands find their place in the world.

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And the way we've done that is by exploring how history and culture

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and desire and all these types of things bounce off one another

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to reveal insights that tell us what's cool about being human.

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So in every episode of Strange Coordinates, one of

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us gives the other a brand.

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That person disappears into the wilderness, comes back with the

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best story that they can find that is hopefully the most compelling.

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It's using brands as Compass points to discover more about the world around us.

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And tofa, before we dive into to this week's episode.

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For the listener out there who has not checked into our last episode on

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Chiquita, this is one of those moments in which I don't, we don't, we don't strive

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necessarily to be a topical show Topher.

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Would you agree?

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I mean, it's kind of to the point where like, it's like, of course it like has

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to so somewhat be topical because the whole point is that we're discovering

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things that are enduring and interesting and brands are always a conversation

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between reality and aspiration.

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And you know, what's going on in the world today?

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But we don't necessarily lift these things.

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We don't lift our brands that we're gonna tackle from the

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from the headlines?

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Well.

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This is one of those instances in which the headlines are very relevant

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to a very recent episode of ours.

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So we did Chiquita in our last episode and talked a little bit about the

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kind of enduring legacy of the banana production industry in Central America.

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Talked a little bit about, um, even a most recent judgment

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against Chiquita last year.

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While lo and behold, Chiquita is in the news as recently as last week for

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very similar activities, um, top line Chiquita has laid off their entire

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workforce in Panama rather than continue, um, with a organized labor negotiation.

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And so if you want to kind of figure out what the backstory there is

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and how Chick to got to that point, really suggest you take a, listen

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to our episode Low Hanging Fruit.

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We'll give you a lot of the backstory how, how chick to arrive there.

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what legacy it's kind of per perpetuating in, in South America and Central

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America, and, and maybe give you a little bit more of an understanding

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about what's happening currently.

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Yeah, I thought it was fascinating how easy after having learned, from what you

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shared with us about Chiquita Mo and how it moves into countries and operates,

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I thought it was really fascinating to be able to detect all of that DNA

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in this very, very recent article.

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You know, like, um, the way that it interacts with labor, the way

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that it interacts with the local

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Right.

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um, like how it pits those two pieces against each other in

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order to create its own benefit.

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And then it kind of gets to be like, ah, we're really sorry that these two parties

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couldn't work anything out, you know?

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Um, and so it just like, you know, you, you kind of laid bare that like DNA, that

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like basic attack plan that they've been doing, they just kind of ran it back.

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But like the 2020s version.

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Yeah.

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And that for me, it's just also like there's something anachronistic

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about the scale of it, about saying like, you know what?

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We're just going to lay off everyone that feels very,

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alert for those of who haven't read the article is kinda

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like what happened, right?

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Like, uh, is a little bit of background.

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Chiquita was kinda like not loving the labor protests that were going on, and

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basically probably worked through the Panamanian government to sort of like

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draw a hard line that they knew that the labor protests wouldn't acquiesce to.

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And then we're like, well, it's in untenable, so

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yeah,

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rid of everybody.

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And I just think there's something very 20th century about that, you

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know, that that's a tactic that is not, that's not a novel tactic that

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comes from a, a history of colonialism and neocolonialism that is, you know,

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something that's just not in the past.

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So, anyways.

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interesting too is that, that that stuff gets written, not to get too far deep

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into the woods, but like we maybe had, like, as America started learning how

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to do that on people we cared less about in countries we didn't care much about.

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Um, but we do it domestically now all the time.

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Uh, like if you don't change your tax strategies, we're gonna lay

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off everybody in your podunk town and we're gonna take our factory

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Yeah,

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so those like, we're like neo colonizing our own, regions now.

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Yeah.

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Um, well, listen I don't wanna take us too far down, uh, a different path

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because we are going to be jogging into something, hopefully a little

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bit more joyful, fun, light, uh,

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There's a lot of fun to be had in the New Balance episode.

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There's a lot of fun to be had.

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And how dark this gets is going to be entirely dependent on you,

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Oh man, I wanted you give me a job every time.

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so maybe it will get dark.

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But what I'm gonna say is that like, I wanna dive in, I want to give some

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like background and new balance, but all of this background is gonna be in

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service of playing a game that I would like to call speculative branding.

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And so I wanna teach you a little bit of, kinda like the core components

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of, uh, give you like A-T-L-D-R on the history of New Balance, and then I'm

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going to posit to you different futures.

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And then what I want you to do is to take what we've learned about New

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Balance and what you imagine those futur to contain and say like, here's

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a direction the brand could go that how they would like, lean on their

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core equities, like move into a future

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you do this now you're like basically putting me on the spot.

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To show whether or not I

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Prove you can do your

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Yeah.

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Can I do my actual job?

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Uh,

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think it'll be fun

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I just wanna point out that my task to you was read something

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in the voice of Dr. Seuss.

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That was the task you got.

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Well, you, you know, you farmed it out to, uh, Gemini and I

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like to farm it out to you.

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I, I prefer to keep the work in

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Oh, I see.

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Yeah, you're right.

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Thank you.

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So you know, I'll, I'll refresh you on the rules when we get to

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Okay, perfect.

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let's, let's dive into to New Balance.

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do it.

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I'm gonna talk about three basic phases of New Balance as a brand.

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Kinda like it's three core iterations.

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Like, you probably wouldn't break these out as like the three main

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pieces of like, what it meant as like a corporation or an operation.

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But these to me seem after researching it kind of like.

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The three main iterations of how the brand interacted in America.

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And the two things that I think these really highlight are, one,

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the state of exercise in America and how that related to culture.

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And then two, how athletics helps navigate something that is a really

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important tension that creates what we would call like coolness,

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trendiness, And, and that tension is that tension between trying and not

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Uhhuh.

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Cool.

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You can't not try at all.

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But you can't try too hard.

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All a's ain't cool.

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Yeah.

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and so I think the way that athleticism kind of helps navigate

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that comes to the fore as we dig

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Okay.

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All right.

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I'm interested.

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Okay, cool.

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Uh, phase number one I'm gonna call this phase New Balance and Athletics.

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Okay.

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This is from vaguely 1906 to 1970.

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Wow,

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So this is a phase in which we see New Balance being founded.

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1906

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are kidding

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in Boston.

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Yep.

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It was founded by an Irish immigrant, whose name was William J. Riley.

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Um, and he immigrated to Boston and he founded the New Balance Arch

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support Company in the Boston area.

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Now, what's fascinating is that he actually is the

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originator of Arch support.

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And one of the first things I looked into was just kinda like, I remember

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as a kid, my mom being like, arch support's a really important thing in

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your tennis shoes and blah, blah, blah.

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And it is actually, uh, I was like, is this just hoo-ha?

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Like, have we, some of the things back in the eighties that we

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thought were super important in athletics, you know what I mean?

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Like didn't necessarily pan out and be really important, but

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arch support was a revolutionary thing for him to have discovered.

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And William J. Riley actually came up with the idea, according to him, by looking

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at how the chickens in his yard walked.

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He said that the three toe with the back thing

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Yeah.

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provides, uh, the perfect kind of stability.

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So his arch support had a three point arch support.

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Um, and he just made the arch supports themselves.

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But that kind of like grew into a shoe company and kind of was

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a, a provider of athletic gear.

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Can I just say that I don't look at a chicken and think that

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that creature looks comfortable.

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wanna run like that.

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Yeah.

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It does not seem like,

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a real, you

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real herky jerky.

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It just seems like impossible that they should be balancing

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on these little sticks.

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Yeah.

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But maybe that's the thing.

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They

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Yeah, that's true.

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Yeah.

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It spoke to William J. Riley and it ended up being kind of a little bit

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of a revolutionary thing in athletics.

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And so New Balance was a sought after supplier of athletic gear.

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This is, you know, when we are in 1906, interestingly enough, we are basically

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just 10 years after the creation of the First American marathon in where?

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Boston.

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Boston?

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You're a marathoner, so you'd know that already.

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Well, uh,

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if all marathoners

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want this to come up on the podcast, but I've, I've, I've run a mile or two.

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Um, but, so the Boston Marathon was founded in 1897, which was one

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year after the very first modern marathon was ever sort of founded and

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and people at that time were like running in garine pants basically.

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It was just a, it was like a just boulder hats and hobnail shoes and garine

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and so, because I'm a runner and also a little bit of a competitive dick, I,

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uh, I was like, okay, so first marathon ever, I, I can dust these guys, right?

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Like, you know, like, there, there's no way that like these dudes running with

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canes are gonna like, outpace me and my modern equipment and stuff like that.

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But Spiros somebody, uh, who was the winner of the very first modern, uh.

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Marathon at the very first modern Olympics in 1896 in Athens.

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Uh, he did it in under three hours, and I definitely have not run that

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And, and he,

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don't really aspire

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he had tuberculosis and was probably a smoker.

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Well, that's probably what made him so good.

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You know, he had, he's survived to that,

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Yeah,

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lung capacity.

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Yeah.

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So in 1906, athletics, you know, like we're, where you're seeing the

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formation of some of these things, but in the early 20th century exercise.

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Was not the purview as we would think of it now, of the average American,

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because the average American had a extremely physically demanding day.

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Usually they were either working in a factory or they were working on a farm.

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And so they didn't really need to worry about like how to move their body.

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What they wanted to do was like, go home and sack out.

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You know what I mean?

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Like they were done.

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So, athletics was very much the purview of those who had leisure

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Mm-hmm.

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and that is a little bit of foreshadowing to places we're gonna

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go with new balance later with the pairing of athletics and leisure.

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Um, but you know, so what that means is that like new balance

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isn't a cultural touchstone at all because athletic gear is for your.

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You know, moneyed American Huntsman, it's for your Ivy League collegiate,

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um, from, you know, almost exclusively male, uh, almost, you know, exclusively

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white, exclusively privileged.

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So therefore, new Balance is just kind of the brand that people who do end

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up running find out about because it is a specialty supplier that begins

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to transform a little bit because, and we'll, we'll dig into where a

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culture kind of catches up to that, um, eventually, but for ostensibly

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that, like most of the 20th century New Balance is kind of a very functional.

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Athletic supplier, they're, they give you the equipment.

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So that's gonna take us into our second phase of New Balance as a brand,

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and that is New Balance as fitness.

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So we're moving from New Balance as athletics to New Balance as fitness.

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Um, what do you think is kind of happening by the time we get to the 1970s

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that takes us into this fitness space?

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Jogging as a, as a sport has come to be.

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Yes.

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Mm-hmm.

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Yeah.

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You know, when we get into the

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Gump, so you know, I'm pretty schooled on this.

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Yes.

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And, you know, jogging was a symptom of probably a larger thing that

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was happening, in the 19, in 19 aughts, people were working on farms.

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In the 1970s, huge portions of America are working in

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Mm-hmm.

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They.

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Are commuting to work, they aren't moving.

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And so what you see in the 1970s is what they call the running boom.

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And that is very much brought about by jogging, which was a hilarious thing

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that actually, like, there's a lot of really funny articles where like early

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runners would be like arrested and questioned by the police because they're

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like, why are, why would you be running?

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What are you running from?

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Um, so, uh, you know, there was a lot of, like, police would

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harass and question runners.

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But by the 1970s bill Bowerman.

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Who, later becomes sort of like the father of American running, um, deeply

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connected to Nike, um, deeply connected to Eugene, Oregon, not far from me here.

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Um, he had been in New Zealand and saw all these people jogging.

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It was very popular in New Zealand.

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He was very impressed with the fitness of your average New Zealander.

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And so he wrote a book about jogging, uh, and he started to

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kind of like become a popular voice for you know, this as a sport.

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The reason why, like, we don't wanna, like, it's not like Americans were like,

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gosh, I really want to be like the Kiwis.

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It's, it met a need, which is that like anybody

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Yeah,

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can just like, get out, do a little something good for their body And

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so what you get with the running boom is that, you know, it interacts with

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a lot of other pockets where things like athleticism have been brewing

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for a while, Boston being one of them.

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So Boston already has become sort of like the ancestral home of distance

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running in the US because they have the longest running, uh, marathon there.

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It also is a city where you have a lot of.

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People with money.

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So even during those earlier times there were a lot of like athletic

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associations that started to form and like create the financial and

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societal, cultural supports for sports.

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So you had people doing that earlier on.

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You also have an unusually high concentration of

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colleges and universities.

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So you have a lot of people who are doing athletics, staying in that

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area, wanting to stay involved, going into those athletic associations.

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So by the time the running boom comes out from the west coast, you've got

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Boston really ready, not just with the people, but also with the equipment.

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So there's New balance sitting there being like, oh, everybody wants to run now.

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Amazing.

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I've got just the stuff for you.

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Okay.

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So just so before that, what, kinds of things were they making, like,

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uh, shoes for, but for like, so like soccer cleats or things like that?

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Or was it just because, you know, the running shoe, like what other shoe

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was there before the running shoe?

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Was it just like a train, like a basic trainer kind of thing?

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I mean, I think you had special, I don't, I, I didn't do a lot of

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research into, uh, like, you know, you had to, are you saying like,

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there is the running shoe a new thing?

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Yeah.

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Did they just come out of nowhere and they're like, oh, we need to

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design a, this new product like this?

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Because you're talking about a

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shoes that they ran in.

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Right.

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Like that, you know, new Balance originally just made some parts

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to be inserted into shoes.

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Um, and then eventually, um, it would, you know, like New Balance was making

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just like the whole shoe itself.

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Um, the modern tennis shoe, um, is not necessarily.

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The sneaker, you would say, is not a new balance invention.

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Um, a lot of people like to lay the credit for that on the, in the, on

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the Nike side, on the west coast.

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But I think in some ways it's kind of like those types of designs became pervasive.

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But like the purpose of the thing and the thing that New Balance represented

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was like, oh, do you wanna run now, Mr.

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Office dude, in the 1972?

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Cool.

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We already make those shoes.

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And so they start to make them for a broader set of America.

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And so you start to see designs, co-opt that like sort of sneaker

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look and those types of things.

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But it is still really focused on a fitness setting.

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It is like New Balance is the thing that has the arch support that's

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proven to be really good that you're supposed to wear because it means

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that you can perform and be healthy.

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You can keep a balanced chicken like stride as you're doing your athletics.

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Yeah.

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Um, so that's kind of like, you know, when, uh, the running boom transforms

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into the aerobics boom of the eighties, you know, so like you start to see

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these successive kind of like exercise trends ripple through culture.

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And so this like.

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Fitness era is basically like 1970 to 2010

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Uhhuh?

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That's kind of like our, our second era.

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So we've done athletics, which lasted from oh six to 70.

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We've done fitness from 70 to 2010.

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And then we're gonna move into our third era with New Balance,

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which is New Balance as athleisure.

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And that's 2010 to the present.

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And so some people like to say active wear.

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A lot of people like to say active wear now because in some ways, like

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athleisure as a term has been maligned.

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Um, and you know, some would say rightly

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Uhhuh.

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um, but.

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I'd like to use it to refer to this like the, the era that New Balance is in.

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Athleisure is actually a fascinating term.

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If you go back, you can see that it actually is referenced as early as

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1979 because as early as then people started breaking the rules, right?

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Like it was like, that's a running shoe, but you're wearing it in this

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way or more typically in, the late seventies, starting to get into,

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through like the, um, early nineties, you saw this slow creep of the stuff

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that we were making for athletic wear, influencing what fashion kind of looked

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Yeah.

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And so you had.

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the.

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Yeah.

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And even less literal too.

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Like you would have like, I forget, there was like an article from like,

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uh, women's wear Wear daily in like 1994, and it used the term athleisure

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and it defined athleisure as the inspiration of silhouette from athletics

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into a space where you would use like a canvas shoe or a suede shoe.

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So like a, a suede shoe that is borrowing from an athletic type shoe, they would

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call that athleisure, which is different from what we actually call athleisure now.

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And that's where I would say like, that's why to me, this athleisure phase doesn't

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really start until the 2000 tens, because really that is not about inspiration

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moving from one direction to the other.

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It's really about like, actually.

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You're using this thing, you're taking literally an athletic

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product and then you're just bringing it into a different space.

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You know what I mean?

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I went, this led me, I don't know if you are familiar with a podcast called

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Articles of Interest Avery Truffleman.

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not, tell me

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Fascinating podcast.

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Phenomenal, phenomenal.

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It's a Radiotopia podcast.

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She herself did a lot of reporting for 99% Invisible, which is an iconic show.

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Um, articles of interest is her pursuing her own passion, which is fashion.

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Um, and she did a little capsule season where she studied Ivy Ivy

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Oh yeah.

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her thesis is kinda like the quintessential American style.

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And so.

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I referenced this when we're talking about this kind of athleisure phase,

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because it actually, when you start to dig into the history of athleisure and

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where it all comes from, fashion borrowing from athletics doesn't start just in

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Right.

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you know, late 19 hundreds, early two thousands phase.

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It's actually something that has happened multiple

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Mm-hmm.

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You, you're, I, I hear you nodding along and saying, yeah.

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Are there any pieces that come to mind for

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yeah, I think like, you know, tennis fashion in the

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eighties and nineties for sure.

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Golf, um, certainly in the eighties, like the golf shirt becoming something

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that was just sort of ubiquitous.

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and then when you think about like how music has, has served as a, arbiter

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between fashion types of fashion, so like how hip hop has elevated things from

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certain athletics into larger fashion culture that's like, it becomes super

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really, it, you know, it's, it's not just a, a most recent phenomenon for sure.

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Yeah, totally.

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And it's interesting that you bring up tennis because you can go back to the

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1920s and look at how fashion magazines were talking about trends back then.

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What you had socially and what you had kind of like, economically was women

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entering into society in totally new ways.

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they Were dancing in nightclubs.

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They were riding on bicycles, they were actually playing sports.

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And there were a lot of iconic female athletes at the time that ended up

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becoming kind of the fashion plates or the exemplars for a new type of

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fashion that was more free flowing, gave you the ability to move.

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. And so tennis in the 1920s served as a major source of inspiration

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in terms of separates, in terms of, uh, how much you could move.

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And so you had magazines back in the 1920s saying like 75% of all of

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fashion that is happening in women's world today is coming from sport.

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Huh.

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Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it is interesting and it's, we sort of

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touched on a similar type of cycle in our Nordic track episode, 'cause

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it was also connected to, fitness.

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We showed how fitness was connected to larger social movements that

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were happening in the, in the seventies around, um, women's

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rights and around bodily autonomy.

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And And I'm curious what, where you're leading us to about this current moment.

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Well, you know what?

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We've talked about the precursors to athleisure, but I think it's kind

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of important to take that component heads on, and I think that there's

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you can parse this in a lot of ways and we are living through this

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movement still, this moment still.

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So, you know, we can't say like, boom, it's done.

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Here's basically what it was.

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But in my head I think that there's sort of, especially if you look at how

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new Balance interacts in a world where

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starts showing up in leisure, I think there's like two phases.

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The first phase is like your dad phase.

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I was, that's my first exposure to a new balance, for sure.

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You know what's interesting is that like, so you sent, uh, that hilarious,

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SNL sketch with Zach Gakis where they're talking about kind of new balance.

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That was, I think 11 years ago, something like

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like that.

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At that point it was, it had reached ubiquity enough that we could all

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laugh at the fact that like, there are people wearing athletic shoes, khakis,

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and like a plaid shirt tucked into the khaki and probably like a backpack

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holding like a really chunky laptop.

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And that was kind of like, that was a person, and it was a little funny

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that this person who very often might not necessarily look like we are

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standard, uh, idea of a performance athlete was wearing performance

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Right.

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Yeah.

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And that had been happening for a while, well before COVID, you know, so when

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people talk about like what COVID did to athleisure, like certainly when you get

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to things like sweatpants, we, you know, like it totally changed the game for that.

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But footwear was way ahead of co like, you know what I mean?

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Because we weren't wearing, we weren't wearing shoes anyway, we were just sitting

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around at home, uh, in our bare feet.

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But, um, you know, footwear was like the, it was the tip of the

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spear and taking something that was made for an athlete into, the IT

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Uh huh.

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so that's kinda like the dad world.

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I think there's, there's some really interesting people credit, some really

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interesting celebrities specifically in bringing New Balance forward.

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And one of those celebrities is Jerry Seinfeld.

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Really?

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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Um, if you look at a lot of like, not just.

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Episodes.

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Like if you think back in your head, you're like, oh, he

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guess, I guess he was wearing

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Seinfeld, he was wearing New Balance.

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quite a bit.

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Um, but there's a lot of, like, when he's doing promo photography for the

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show, um, even before that when he was doing standup and just becoming popular

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in the world of standup he, there's a lot of Jerry Seinfeld Rocking New

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Balance, and this is not, I have like, I couldn't find anything where he's

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like talking about it specifically.

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But one of the things that made me think that, I think there's a cultural thread

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here that brings us to Jerry Seinfeld wearing new balance with a, like a leather

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jacket and like a, a button up shirt and some like tight fitting jeans is.

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New balance very early on in its days when it was still in, its like fitness

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or even its athletics era formed.

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A very tight connection with the YMCA and the YWCA and the YMCA and the YWCA became

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really important cultural touchstones, especially for Upper West Side

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right?

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Sure, yeah,

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um, New York.

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And so if you think about, I can't say specifically if Jerry did go to A-Y-M-C-A

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or not, but he grew up in an area, a culture in New York where you know,

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like connection with like those types of institutions was like well known.

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So.

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I imagine Jerry Seinfeld being exposed to New Balance as a kid in

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the world of playing basketball.

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Um, I imagine him being friends with people who really enjoyed New Balance.

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And I I would imagine him then continuing to wear these shoes because for Jerry

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Seinfeld, all of his peers graduate.

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They get office jobs, they have to wear loafers and brogues and all that stuff.

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And he is a comedian and he doesn't have to fucking do

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Yeah.

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And I think, yeah, I think Jerry Seinfeld's wearing New Balance feels

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a little bit like a thing that's like, I have a button up shirt on,

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but like I've got tennis shoes on.

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I'm a funny guy.

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Like there's a little bit of like, I don't have to obey your rules.

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I'm not so buttoned

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Right.

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I mean, yeah.

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That's crazy.

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'cause you know, I would, I, out of that cast, I would've called,

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I would've said that George was much more of a new balance guy.

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the new balance of the nineties feels very George Costanza.

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Um, but I, I mean like Jerry kind of lending New Balance, a bit of his, the

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what sort of counter-cultural cachet he had as real, really interesting.

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well, 'cause I would actually say, I get what you mean in terms

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of like a George type character.

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We currently would imagine wearing New Balance.

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But if you think about where he was in the show, he was working in an office.

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George was wearing office shoes the whole time.

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Jerry could get away with wearing tennis shoes 'cause he

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didn't have to go to the office.

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The Georges of today are wearing New Balance because the Jerrys

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of yesterday wore them first.

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Georges couldn't run because Jerry walked basically, is what you're saying.

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Yes.

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And they both had phenomenal chicken, like arch support.

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Um, Topher, I want to, I wanna, um, explore something that's been in my head a

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little bit, and this is maybe, maybe from personal subject, subjective experience.

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My exposure to New Balance was through my father.

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Early on he was a marathon runner, much like yourself, probably not as

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prolific as you, but he was indeed a marathon runner when I was younger.

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And, um, he ran a new balance.

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And so my supposition was always that New Balance was kind of like special.

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Is that, does that hold true?

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Was New Balance a little bit of a niche shoe?

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And then kind of as a follow up question of that, I'm really interested in how

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those types of kind of niche performance shoes actually make the jump into culture.

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Like you think about Hoka right now, for instance, like it's really

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interesting how these high performance shoes are becoming everyday shoes in

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ways that I don't think 10 years ago or 15 years ago would've been the case.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I mean, I would personally say that the pivot point that happens that

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takes us from this shit is not for me.

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It's for my 40-year-old dad to this shit is for me is norm core dad

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core, this like moment where the.

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Deep respect for and love of irony in the millennial soul sort of began to eat

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its own disdain for old by looking old, but in a funny way, in an intentionally

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cooler way in the self-referential way.

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It's not until Norm Core Dad core that you actually get kind of like a

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wholehearted adoption of clunkier more specialty footwear like looser, um,

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more beige and khaki, uh, you know, palettes like you, you have all, all

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those components that kind of get co-opted into millennial style and into

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like more popular culture from there.

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And that really serves as like a huge inflection point in taking athleisure from

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like a dad space, which is like, I deserve to be comfortable just like athletes do.

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And so I'm gonna do, wear this shoe when I'm walking around the

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halls of my office, um, rather than something that like hurts me.

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I'm no longer gonna put my tennis shoes in my.

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Bag or under my desk after I commute, I'm just gonna keep

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them on 'cause they look a little

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Yeah.

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Evolving into fashion through a millennial Instagram driven aesthetic

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that is kind of making fun of

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Mm-hmm.

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But in some ways has the same values.

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Like I wanna be comfortable

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Yeah.

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And so that begins high fashion and very quickly millennial Instagram trend gets

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mashed up into collab, uh, aesthetic.

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And that's where you see sort of what would be like, I bought,

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new Balance 'cause they're the clunkiest, but like still like.

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They're not Asics, right?

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Like we, millennials didn't grab scones.

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They grabbed New Balance in some ways because it was like a blank palette.

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It was, you know, you could, you could pair it with other fashion.

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Like a Saucony was always gonna just be like a mess, you know?

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Like, uh, you couldn't wear jeans with that.

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You couldn't wear khakis with that.

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But like, new Balance is clean enough and other shoes had those,

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and certainly like you had like, you saw that kind of with like the, pumas

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Yeah, yeah.

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Totally.

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know, so like there was a lot of like pulling back of retro styles, but all of

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that kind of culminated in businesses like New Balance, recognizing this, recognizing

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that at this point, the Supreme style collab, uh, model was a way for them

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to launch themselves into high fashion.

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And so in the 2000 tens to now, you see the athleisure space in general go from.

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I wanna be comfortable in an office.

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Two, I wanna be super high end.

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I wanna borrow the performance aesthetic to show off, my physique or

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to look really clean and super crisp and you know, like really minimalist.

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There are a lot of different things that you can pull from that, kinda like

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bring this in and, and take us to like where we are now with Ale Athleisure or

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Active Wear more broadly, which is what they call it now, which is, you know,

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you've had your, your Yeezy moments, but you also have New Balance now being

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run with their creative director, being the person who founded a Ma Leon Dore.

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Oh, wow.

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they're doing partnerships with Mu Mu, they're partnering

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with the Boston Red Sox.

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So.

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what a

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kinda like fully into culture now and being little, uh, you know,

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like drivers of that aesthetic.

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Um, so they've really kind of like arrived at that component there,

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where like we're at the, we're at the like new balance as fashion.

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So, you know, this takes us, we have now, we've now moved from

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these three basic phases of New Balance, the athletics phase.

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The fitness phase, the athleisure

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Yeah.

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I want to give you a few highlights or like touchstones, because we're going

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start, you know, like we're going to start putting you through your paces

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Before we do that, I want to ask you, um, What's interesting to me

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is that because of the story you've just laid out these three eras that

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are so radically different, it makes the longevity of the brand even more

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remarkable that for a, you know, 60 years, there was no mass use case.

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Really, like, you know, there was, they were playing at the fringes

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of, of, um, active wear, like.

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But there was no, there was nothing driving like the need for New Balance

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in the, in a broad mix of like athletic shoes and the, the fact that they sort

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of like survived to become something over that time to me is like shocking.

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It's like actually shocking.

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Uh,

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you gotta think in this, like there was probably, you know,

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proliferations of other companies.

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That, you know, like they can't have been that they were the originator of the

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arch support, so they could claim that.

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But like, I'm sure there were other companies out there that

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were like, we do that too.

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You know?

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Um, so I think there's probably unsung heroes in terms of just

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like straight up business acumen.

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One of the things that actually is really fascinating too is that

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new Balance has always, and they say will always be made in the

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Oh, cool.

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That's awesome.

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So there is like this component of kinda like owning the production new Balance

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has been able to justify its higher price points for being American made

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by talking about athletic excellence.

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And so that has always been like a, a chunk there of like who they are.

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Um, but it has probably allowed them to stay like a little

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closer to their customer.

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Um, for example.

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That's really interesting.

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Have they become a MAGA darling because of that?

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Do you know?

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Or,

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I didn't find anything like that.

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And certainly now it's not like it's one, I think it's not like 100.

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There's like a thing.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Um, so it's not, it's not like they're like making this for materials

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grown in the US and like 100%, you know, like that sort of thing.

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But they do still have that as part of their business model, and it does

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differentiate them from all other footwear

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Yeah.

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You know what else is that stands out to me when I think about this brand.

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Especially in the context of the category is that they don't have an overt history.

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Like you think about, um, Adidas, you've got your, Stan Smiths, you've

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got, or you know, you've got Converse that references Chuck Taylor.

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Like you've got a lot of brand footwear brands that reference their history

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and their past, and they, they lean on those connections to this era.

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You're talking about this athletics era they kind of like

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celebrate their roots in that era.

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And I don't know of any of that in, in New Balance.

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It doesn't, it seems eternally new.

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I don't hear them talking about the new balance past and the, the kind of new

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balance, you know, hall of Heroes that we supported through, you know, they

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don't, they don't talk, I don't, I at least have not seen them talk about like

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celebrated runners that use New Balance in the sixties and seventies and like,

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it doesn't seem like it's, um, rooted

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Not much of a

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Yeah.

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There's not a lot of lore there.

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It just feels like it shows up and you're like, oh, that's a new balance.

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And it kind of like, is both never changing and ever changing.

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It's sort of like shows up and it kind of looks the same that you mentioned

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sort of the beige period, which was like, you know, there was a long time where it

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was just neutrals and uh, light grays.

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And you know, that's very relevant

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yeah, totally.

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Okay.

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So we're, we're tracking.

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No, no, no, we're not, we're already working down the list.

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So what I was saying is that like, let's ground ourselves in like the core equities

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that we've been talking about on New Balance, because these are gonna be your

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paints as you, as you paint us a new canvas, for three potential speculative,

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Fucking, I have to make three fucking campaigns.

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Are you kidding me?

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No, just riff.

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Don't, don't get all, come on.

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What am I getting paid for this Topher?

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This is ridiculous.

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Yeah.

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You literally are getting paid for this

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Oh, that's right.

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Okay.

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We own our own company.

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this is like, when I would go home, uh, is when my mom had a bookstore.

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Um, she's since retired, but when I would go home and she would try to get

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free, uh, free ad campaigns outta me, uh,

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Well you would help,

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of course I would help.

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But it would be like, you know, sitting down to dinner and be like,

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well, what do you think about this?

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I'm like, okay,

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I take it to a campaign.

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If you want my, I don't really care where you go with this.

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My point is just like what?

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What's the role?

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Like?

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Okay, so what we're gonna do is like there's core equities and New Balance

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brand and I'm sorry, this so pains

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Oh,

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but.

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Uh, and now I'm like, okay, this is how your mom got work from you.

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Let me, let me lean into the Catholicism a little bit.

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I'm sorry this

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Oh yeah.

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you, but I appreciate you leaning in.

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Um, okay, so we've got like, in terms of core equities that New balance brings to

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the table that are like enduring, right?

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That we're gonna say, like, these are things that like, and no matter, no

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matter from our like three phases all the way through to now, what are the

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things that are consistent that would, like, we would need to lean on and

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find space for somewhere in the future?

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Like just the straight up like arch support, athletic excellence, like

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that, that grounding in sort of like the functional, finding the right way

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to help support you with equipment

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Gotcha.

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I think at this point you can sort of.

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Bank on that like cool factor that athleticism brings into culture.

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So the connection of athletics into non-athletic spaces and how that brings

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a little bit of pizazz, a little bit of cool factor there made in America.

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I think we should keep that.

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Uh, um, they have themselves a brand promise that they have on

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the bottom of their website that says fearlessly independent.

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Um, I'm not quite sure what that means for us, but I put it, put it forward to you.

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Like, you know, uh, they aren't, they, they are made in America.

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They aren't part of some massive, big holding company,

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you know, so like, I think

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Who looks

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bring that into a fashion

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boy, they seem really dependent.

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I don't know.

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That seems strange.

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Okay.

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Yep.

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Okay.

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Uh, and then the name, the New Balance, and an enduring name.

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Okay, so I'm gonna give you three futures, and I just want you to riff on like, okay,

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in this type of future, I imagine I, I will, I will define what's happening.

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And then every assumption you make is yours to make.

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You don't have to ask, like, is it this?

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Is it, it, it's whatever you assume.

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Okay.

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What's the future?

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Alright, first one.

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It's five years from

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Okay.

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and our economy's experiencing a recession.

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You're giving it five years.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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And you want me,

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what is, what is, yeah.

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How, what would you say, what are the types of things you think, like how would,

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how would New New Balance need to come to life in a world where, money is tight?

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well, I mean, I think like, uh, in terms of activities, running

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is a pretty cheap activity.

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You don't need, uh, you don't need much gear besides what's on your feet.

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You don't need, um, any facilities besides a road or a sidewalk in front of you.

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Um, and so, you know, if you want to tap into, I mean, I think it's probably

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somewhat exhausted already, but like, you know, tap into the community of

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running for people who want ways to keep themselves fit and healthy, that

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isn't, uh, gym membership dependent.

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Um, you know, discretionary spending goes out the, the window immediately.

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Or was the first thing to go during a recession.

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So kind of leaning into the, the, you know, the freedom that running

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can give you the independence that it can give you the freedom that is both

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mental, but also, um, you're not, you don't have to pay anybody to do it.

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You don't have to, you don't get tithed to, to take care of yourself

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if you have a pair of running shoes.

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A pair of new balance in the open road.

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Yeah.

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I love that.

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I mean, I think what I like about what we were talking about, about this future

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for them leaning into kinda like the, the actual just relationship of running is, it

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would be, I. Maybe, if we're moving into a recession, as you were talking about,

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I was thinking like, yeah, discretionary spending going down maybe like high-end,

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super, super mu mu collabs aren't gonna be the way to, you know, American consumers

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hearts in a time when like, we're really having a tough time economically.

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So being something that's a little bit more accessible could actually

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work positively for New Balance.

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It leans into that fearlessly independent, like they could own

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that more, you know, if that's really a space that they wanna be.

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You were talking about what running, how it makes you feel like that,

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like fearless independence in a time when, like you other, every,

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everything else seems harder, like going out and hitting the road.

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And I, I was also thinking as you were talking about that like the

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Made in America component might potentially help if you're like

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building the economy back here.

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You know, I.

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Yeah.

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It's, it's interesting.

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I think, one of the things I was thinking about was what weight can a product

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or a brand like this carry, right?

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Like, could a shoe carry the, the weight of, we're made in America,

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so we're bringing the, we're helping bring the economy back.

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And I think we've seen brands kind of play that sometimes, and

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you're like, that seems like an overplay sometimes for a candy bar.

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Or, you know, like a, so you're like, how, what, what can the brand carry in

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terms of like, those moments and how much of a, of a message can it hold?

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To respond to a moment like a recession or a moment of, you know, national

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focus or tragedy, like, and that's where you have to kind of tread carefully

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if you'll, um, forgive the pun.

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Like it's, it's, what do you look to a brand, like a shoe brand to solve

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for you as a, as a consumer, you know?

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Yeah, kinda like a, it's sort of like getting down to brass tacks.

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Like, uh, this isn't as much a time for, you know, the more like

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high level aspirational stuff,

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Yeah.

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and you can still have aspiration, but in a time where you know, people,

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when you're speaking to people for whom you know, those aspirations might

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feel a little bit irrelevant or like you're ignoring their current state.

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How do you speak to their state but still speak to where they're at, but still

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bring in something that they care about?

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And so you're leaning into this like, you know, runner hitting

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the road as a way to kind of free yourself and empower yourself.

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I think that's a really interesting

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Mm-hmm.

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Cool.

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Okay, so that's, that's speculative future for a new balance one.

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Now, uh, number two we, 20 years from now, geopolitically are in a space

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where a significant portion of the population is up for and being readily

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pulled into military conscription.

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So there's a lot of military activity.

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People are getting pulled into the military.

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There's a lot of traveling around the world to go fight on things or kind

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of facing, a world, a high, more, more militarized and more mobilized society.

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Okay.

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Well, I mean, I think at that point they have to introduce a

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new product and a new partnership.

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So, maybe going back to their roots and doing arch support for combat

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boots, um, you know, doing, and I imagine that like, given the trajectory

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we're on right now, that the, like, the idea of, of public and private

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is gonna be completely mixed anyway.

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So it's probably gonna be the US Army sponsored by New Balance or,

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you know, everything is for sale.

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So, um.

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You know, there, there might be a readily available collab with there immediately.

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fascinating.

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Yeah, that's, oh my gosh.

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Imagining like military uniforms that have like that are sponsored

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the way that soccer uniforms are, or NASCAR uniforms you see, it's

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like the tanks look like NASCAR

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Mm-hmm.

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Wow.

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So, you know, there's that possibility.

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Um, I think that there's also going to nec, you know, potentially be a premium

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put on time when you're not serving.

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Mm,

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Um, and that time that is truly yours.

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If you're conscripted and then you are your's, time, that is actually yours.

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What do you do with that time?

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Um, and goes back to kinda what you were saying about the notion of the connection

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between athletics and leisure time.

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You know, does New Balance provide,

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Mm.

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something in

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Like more relaxing, more downtime.

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Like almost slippers or something.

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yeah,

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Uh, let's see what else, where, what else is, would be an opportunity.

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I was interested in the material aspect as you started talking about this stuff.

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Like I was thinking, you know, going back to times when the US has been involved in

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conflicts before, it like puts a premium on certain types of materials where it's

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like, we're gonna take all the rubber, no one gets to use rubber, and so everything

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else has to kind of get creative with the types of stuff that they make.

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I always just had a weird thought along the lines of kind of like a future in

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which the public has been, um, subsidized by the private in a overt fashion is a

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future in which brand beliefs and brand promises actually hold geopolitical sway.

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So for instance, you're mentioning a time in which you imagine a future in

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which there's a lot of conflict and such that nations need to mobilize

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their populace in armed services to wage war against one another.

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What if a brand that stood for the notion of balance became a geopolitical

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actor and in the way that the Vatican has tried to be a geopolitical actor?

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What if a brand tries to broker peace because it believes

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in this notion of balance?

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What if like brand beliefs become.

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The new constitutions, the new Magna Carta of the world and,

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Hmm.

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and brands as organizations fight for or stand up in the public sphere for what

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they claim to believe as organizations

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Right, and they, they like we all must, we as a world as a species

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must stand as steadily as a chicken.

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come on.

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The thi the fact that this is always,

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It just helps me realize, like, that's the thing, you know, the little, apparently

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the dude kept a chicken foot on his desk.

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I mean that's pretty, uh, that, that, that's legit.

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I feel

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of metal.

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yeah, that is a little bit, that is a bit metal and I also think that that's a

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person who kind of like put his beliefs really out there and I appreciate that.

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Okay, so that's, that's two.

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That's two number three 50 years in the future.

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The United States, as many other countries at that point, have

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institutes a universal basic income.

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AI is doing.

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All the work and we're all kinda, we can continue to go out there and do more if

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we want to, but we can also kind of just sit around and, and do whatever we like.

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Okay.

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I got it.

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This, I've been waiting for this one.

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Do you ever see the, do you ever see the movie, Wally?

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Y you know what I like am aware of it and I have not watched the whole thing.

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I think I watched like pieces of it in planes multiple times.

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so there's, you know, it's, it's basically a movie in two parts.

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There's Wally by himself on the planet, and then there's Wally up in space on the,

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where the last vestiges of humanity are.

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And humans have been in space so long that they're.

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their bones have kind of separated and they're all hugely overweight

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and they get tutored around in, in these little, um, hovering chairs.

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So I think that's where, that's where we're at.

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And what New Balance is gonna take the chicken foot and invert it into

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a supportive, so instead of arch support, it'd be as support scoot people

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around in with their cartilaginous bones and, uh, and their masses and

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support them in a whole different way.

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Not as a shoe, but as a, a ch an enveloping chair.

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Okay.

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You take like the same supportive technology and then in a world

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where you don't really have gravity, it's used in a very

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Yeah.

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You're just, you lean into support, you go back to your roots,

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which is like our roots are in.

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Uh, you know, avoiding knee blowouts by giving you better

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arch support and turn that into for the modern age where nobody's

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actually working, there's no labor.

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We spend most of our time plugged into a, a network.

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Uh, how can we support the human physiology?

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Yeah.

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There you go.

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I mean, that's fa I, I was even thinking then like, 'cause Yeah,

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what does athletic excellence look like in a world where like.

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Effort is no longer needed.

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Part of me was like, I could see a world where rather than like in the life of

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infinite leisure, we end up opting into like a life of infinite athletic toil.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I mean, what's interesting is that there's also this is a future maybe

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five years ago if you had asked me this question, or three years ago,

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in the middle of the, of the, um.

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NFT crypto phase.

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Uh, there's a world in which I would've said that new balance

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would shift to a totally digital brand, totally digital product.

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And it would be selling things to support our digital personas

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rather than our physical personas.

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And, and, um, and that could still be a thing, you know, like, but there was

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already some really interesting stuff happening around the translation of

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physical products into a, into a digital token and vice versa, and what that meant.

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And I think that was a really interesting place to start to explore.

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So maybe that's an another, another option that that new balance becomes

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a purely ephemeral brand that doesn't actually exist in the real world anymore.

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And

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Yeah.

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All right, so we've got, we've got like return to running.

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yeah.

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We've got sponsoring tanks, we've got Space Thrones,

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Space Thrones.

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Yeah.

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and these are the three basic futures that we should proactively pitch

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to the executives at New Balance.

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Yeah.

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I mean, I think we could make a case for all of them, and we could, we could link

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them to their brand very, very easily.

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Yes.

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Done.

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All right, so we've got, we've got our work ahead of us on that one.

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Uh,

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I mean,

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but, uh,

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years from now, I'm just not, I'm not planning on being here, so

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you don't want a space thrown.

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don't, I don't want a space thrown.

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Well, you know, 50 years from now, you might not be around, but a

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month from now, you will be around

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Oh,

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and you will

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What a, what?

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Amazing, amazing transition.

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digging,

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What a turn.

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you will be telling us about the next brand that you're gonna be

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researching, and would you like to learn

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I, I would, I, I would like to learn.

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I'm a little, I'm nervous.

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I don't know.

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This is like the first time I've been nervous.

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Topher.

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I don't know why

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You seem a little, you, you have nothing to be nervous about.

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Yeah, I feel like we were, we raised the bar continuously.

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Uh,

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you're just like, how will I possibly.

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yeah.

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But I'm also feeling like, uh, I've,

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Well, you, I feel like you continued to Yeah.

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Like level things up.

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I was like, I thought I was skating by with a little bit

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of like, imagination work.

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I was just kinda like, I didn't have to do any, like, I didn't

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make any poems, you know?

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I was just like, Hey,

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is where it's at.

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what, what, what about a, a future where, uh, universal basic income.

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Let's go Yang Gang on this.

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Okay.

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All right.

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So you're telling me what, what I would be looking into.

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Is there any, what's the preamble here?

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Get romance it.

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Oh, let's see.

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I want to get, you know, we've talked about, uh, athletics performance,

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really like aspirational moments.

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But I kinda want to get back to basics.

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I wanna get back to the, the nitty gritty brass.

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Attacks of what it means for us to just like get some work

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Uhhuh, huh?

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as like people who have desk jobs.

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I'm in this space of like churning stuff out, getting things done, putting

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ideas in the wall with a Post-it note.

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Oh, I love this.

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I love this.

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I want us to focus on the craft of advertising.

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Post-it notes are, you know, like an absolute must have in like your

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stereotypical like advertising office.

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You see them everywhere.

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I already know something about the origin of the Post-It

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Oh, cool.

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Okay.

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And I think we have talked about this, that origin story in

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We did actually.

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that was, what

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That I know exactly what that was.

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That was in our interview with Adam,

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Right.

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Correct.

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we were talking about hacking things together.

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And so that must have been, it must have sat in the kernel of my

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right.

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Um, but

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there, but not too strongly

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Yeah.

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You only, yeah, exactly.

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Uh, not enough to leave a mark.

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Um, but, yeah.

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You, you, you referenced a little bit of its creation, but

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I don't think we got any deeper

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No, no, it was in the con the question, it was in our off, off-brand quiz, and

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it was the, it was about unintended consequences, basically how, how, things

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that were made for one purpose ended up being used for another purpose.

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Um, and I don't want to, I don't wanna ruin anything else, uh,

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beyond that, but I, I think that's, um, that's a good place to start.

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If you want a little bit of like a, a taste of where we're headed,

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maybe listen to that interview on Stranger Coordinates with Adam

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Christensen, the CMO of notified.

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Yes, please.

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Okay.

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Cool.

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Well, I'm gonna dig into that.

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I'm gonna turn this into just a wall of fragments everywhere.

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Just gonna be completely surrounded.

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Okay, awesome.

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Well, that's gonna be great.

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Um, for the story behind Post-It notes some, um, I, I was gonna make some really

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shitty pun and I'm not gonna do it.

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I'm not gonna end on a shit pun.

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I'm not gonna do it anyways.

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Let's just see what happens.

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Join us next time we'll be talking about Post-It.

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You've been listening to Strange Coordinates.

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It's the show where we use brands as roadmaps to arrive at fascinating places.

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Your hosts are Topher, uh, who has been delivering a real blockbuster

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this time, and me, Robert Balog.

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Um, if you wanna learn more about our agency, which would be awesome

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if you did, um, go to our website.

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It's we are territorial.com.

Speaker:

You can join our mailing list there.

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We have, I would say that we've really upped our mailing list game, and I know

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we've re we, we kind of milked the mailing list at the end of this every single time.

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But most recently we've had webinars, we've had podcast episodes, we've had

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funny an, we've had so much stuff in

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AI think pieces.

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Hey, I think pieces, it's

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yep.

Speaker:

good stuff.

Speaker:

So join the mailing list and then also follow us on LinkedIn.

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I think that'd be great as well.

Speaker:

We post a lot of stuff there.

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Um, we look forward to seeing you there and if not here in a few weeks.

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Thanks so much.

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Thank you everybody.

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I, I'm, sometimes I'm like you and I maybe are hearing the, a different song

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'cause I don't know what I'm doing.

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Yeah.

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You're like, what's going on over there?

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You have, you have the, you have the, the five o'clock shadow of,

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of a person who's been up all night trying to solve a murder.

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Yeah.

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You're just putting the story together for a new balance, you know?

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yeah.

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you do like a wall with the,

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yarn.

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Yeah, the yarn

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About the Podcast

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Strange Coordinates
Brands are compass points to unexpected places

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About your host

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Topher Burns

Born in Albuquerque, hardened in NYC, and rapidly softening in Portland Oregon. Former TV blogger, current tarot novice, and future bronze medal gymnast at the 2048 senior olympic games in Raleigh-Durham. Founded a branding agency for regenerative businesses. DM for pics of his cats.