Australia Release: Salehe Bembury x New Balance 990v2 ‘Sand Be The Time’

News on this release was first published on June 24, 2022.

Update February 8, 2023: Australia will receive an allocation following the wider release on December 22! If you’re located Down Under, you can cop from the NB webstore on February 10.

Update December 14, 2022: Salehe Bembury’s New Balance 990v2 will land at select retailers on December 22!

Update December 6, 2022: The Salehe Bembury x New Balance 990v2 ‘Sand Be The Time’ will land on December 8 via the designer’s web channels.

Update November 28, 2022: The closest look yet of Salehe Bembury’s New Balance 990v2 has surfaced via @arab_lincoln​! No exact release date has been announced, but expect a December release.

Salehe Bembury and New Balance are set to shake up the sneakersphere once again, with the designer taking to his Instagram to reveal a brand-new 990v2 colab. Dressed in Bembury's signature bright and colourful tones, it's his first go-around with a model in the 990 series and his sixth colab with New Balance in total since they first joined forces in 2020.

The single image that Bembury posted of the shoe shows off its earthy colour scheme that combines various pink and orange shades from salmon to clay – all of which are centred around a regal purple chenille N logo on the midfoot. It's constructed from shaggy suede and sporty mesh, just like most 990v2s, but quite unlike other 990v2s you'll see the mesh is of a much wider gauge, closer in line to the mesh Bembury used on his duo of 2002R collaborations than the tightly-wound mesh you'd see on an in-line release.

As mentioned above, this 990v2 is Bembury's sixth collaborative footwear effort with New Balance. The 2002R 'Peace Be the Journey' debuted in October 2020, and was followed by the Test Run Project 3.0 'Finders Keepers' in March 2021. Bembury released his 2002R 'Water Be the Guide' in June 2021, then dropped two batches of his 574 'Yurt': the first in September 2021, the second in April 2022.

At the time of writing, we're still awaiting the official name and product inspiration of this new Salehe Bembury x New Balance 990v2. Bembury is a master of leaks and product teasers, so we're likely to have some more info soon.