new balance is staying funky with the AVENJ

When the folks at New Balance decided to move from a strict "form follows function" mentality, they didn't give up the function, but they have had a lot of fun adding style. This time they partnered with Her Majesty Secret Studio's Sean D'Anconia (and that sounds fun already) to break out this taxi gold "Avenj" that pays homage to 70s grindhouse cinema.


What is grindhouse cinema? According to wikipedia, it's another term for exploitation films, and the seedier "grindhouses" that showed in double features along with bump and grind burlesque shows. "Beginning in the late 1960s and especially during the 1970s, the subject matter of grindhouse films was dominated by explicit sex, violence, bizarre or perverse plot points, and other taboo content." Sounds juicy, right?


And according to New Balance, this version includes imagery from the streets of Harlem to the skyscrapers of Hong Kong, including D'Anconia's "fusion of 70s funk, yakuza and kung-fu imagery". For those of us not cool enough to know what yakuza is, wikipedia says it's "members of traditional organized crime groups in Japan. Today, the Yakuza are one of the largest crime organizations in the world." So now you can enjoy these joints cuz they're pretty as hell, or cuz they support art, exploitation or crime. How cool is that.


These are out now, and the smallest size is a men's 7. Hmmmm, that's my size....