Mortgage The House (Again): 35-Plus Years of the New Balance 1300JP
New Balance are reissuing the mythical 1300JP on February 22, maintaining the tradition of the revered runner’s five-year retro cycle. Australian boutique Up There are getting first dibs and releasing a tight allocation of the freshly delivered M1300JP3 on Friday, February 21 at a special event that starts a 6:00pm sharp.
The JP3 marks the third time this particular makeup has been available outside of Japan, where it was originally a region-exclusive model. The days of prowling eBay and Yahoo Japan Auctions for early reissues are thankfully over… Picking these up will be no walk in the park though!
To mark the milestone, Up There have sourced a string of 1300JP retros from the past 35 years and compared the pairs, including a rare pre-1995 sample! This is a timely update to our 2015 article, where we compared the JP2 with earlier releases.
Referencing the popular quote, ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results’, the 1300JP is an exercise in replicating a sneaker to near perfection. Some of the variations across retros are fractions of a millimetre different, or shades apart in a colour chart. But hey, that’s what trainerspotting is all about.
Thanks to the Up There team for the images. Check out their 1300JP archive in store for IRL views of NB’s wallet-busting and comfort king model.
