Salehe Bembury x New Balance 2002R1 'Peace Be the Journey'

Salehe Bembury, if you don’t know his name by now then you’re missing out. A previous lead designer for Versace Mens sneakers, Salehe was even the brains behind the celebrity endorsed Versace shoe - the Chain Reaction, which although isn’t to everyones taste, was a refreshing breeze of new design coming from the brand with an insane chain linked sole unit.

This release between Salehe and New Balance was his first ever personal collaboration. The shoe comes pieced together in high quality suedes, nubuck, mesh and a corkage innersole.

As for design inspiration on this model, it was a covid brain child that Salehe produced thanks to many morning hikes in LA finding himself above the clouds. For any of you who have seen his stories will know what I am on about. The shoes colourful make up takes cues from the nature, rock colour gradients and blue skies found around some of the great national parks found within the USA. Such as, Bryce Canyon, Antelope Canyon and Grand Canyon. Salehe talks about how these hikes and surrounding nature that he finds himself immersed most mornings produced a sense of peace amongst chaos, thus creating the shoes name - ‘Peace be the Journey.

When picking what shoe to collaborate on, Salehe was offered a mix of new upcoming models one of which being the 992… Rather than working on this all time classic he saw this as an opportunity to make his project standout against the rest and opted for the 2002R so that his work stood as a more individual release rather than clustered within what we have been seeing already.

Big question is though, are we ready for the next one? - Water Be The Guide