The Designer Behind New Balance's 'Protection Pack' Wants You to Stop Calling It That

Image via New Balance

When you came to the States, you knew you wanted to be a footwear designer?

Yeah, I was pretty clear on that. When I was a kid, I was pretty clear.

What inspired you to want to do that?

I think if I trace back, when I was in middle school, that’s the first time that [the] NBA got introduced to China. It was when Yao Ming got drafted. And just the whole culture. The whole American culture just came through where I grew up. We were just fascinated by all the stuff. I played basketball for fun, not professionally,then just got really into basketball shoes. And, also, I started to listen to American music. I used to buy these weird CDs. It’s no way they were licensed. It was just random CDs, a dollar for each. I used to buy all Three 6 Mafia, DMX, Snoop Dogg. I didn’t even know them. I just thought the covers were super cool. 

I know that New Balance is really big in Japan, but is New Balance big in China as well?

Yeah. It was big. I remember I got my first pair of 574. That was my first pair of New Balance. But I didn’t care about it too much. But the 580 was a huge one. That’s just got me really into New Balance. NB in China is pretty big as a very stable lifestyle brand. Kinda got influenced by Japan, for sure. All those people—Edison Chen, all that.

Was it your goal to work for New Balance, specifically? Or did you just want to work in the footwear industry? What did you start doing there?

I really just wanted to work in the industry. It didn’t have to be any specific brand. I didn’t think I was good enough. I never saw people from China really work overseas as a designer. I wasn’t telling myself, “Yeah, one day, I’ll be working for New Balance, or Nike, or Adidas, or whatever.” I was just, “Yeah, let’s see if there’s an opportunity for me to design shoes.”

What did you start doing there?

Have you heard about Pensole?

Yeah.

I went to that, which was very helpful for me to start as a footwear designer. I went to it twice, actually. First time, I was still in graduate school. I had no clue about footwear design. I went there the first time and I just learned it all. Me and the other two kids won the first place for that course. So that was kind of a confidence boost. And then New Balance and Pensole held a class after I graduated. I was about to head home, but I felt I might just do it to see what’s going on.

So I went there. I actually got selected through that program, and started interning the following year with New Balance. When I first started, I was working on the performance side. I wasn’t working on “performance” performance at that point. I was just taking care of all those more mass-market shoes for Kohl’s or DSW, that type of product. I worked on a lot of that. Then I started to do a little bit higher, more performance-driven products, and some cross-country spikes. Then I made the change to lifestyle team. And this shoe is just one of the first projects I got.

You haven’t designed a lot of lifestyle product at all, then?

No. This is the first shoe that got launched. But I have a lot of stuff coming out soon. But this is one of the first.

This shoe is radically different than a lot of stuff that New Balance does. When you were doing all of, as you said, the Kohl’s sort of projects, did you have these ideas for footwear at the time? Or did you just keep them to yourself?

I did. I did present it. But I also understood from the business side that my designs might not be the most suitable thing for the market. But I just kept presenting ideas. 

Did they finally notice that you had ideas that would be better for lifestyle? Is that how you transitioned?

My old boss always knew that. But I just never had the chance to move to lifestyle, and I was pretty happy under her. At that time, in my head, I wasn’t really focusing on, “Yeah, this is such a great idea. We need to do it.” I was more like, “Let me just learn how to build a shoe.” I didn’t care about if my idea got produced. I was just trying to learn the whole business and the fundamental skills about designing a shoe.

You have this “Protection Pack.” I saw that it’s inspired by a “refined future” and the idea that people across the world would just wear their New Balance shoes so long that they would fall apart, but still hold together. How did you get that idea?

First, I do want to say there’s no such thing as the “Protection Pack.” I still don’t know why people call it the “Protection Pack.” The first store [that] first launched it made up the name and called it the “Protection Pack.”

So that’s made up?

That’s not the intention at all. Yeah, that’s just so random. And I’m low-key a little bit sad, hearing people call it the “Protection Pack.” It doesn’t make any sense.

It sounds like it almost cheapens the product a little bit.

Yeah, it does. The whole photoshoot from that store is not what I have been imagining. It shouldn’t be like that. Anyway, I pretended like it’s not our intention. And the original name is called, “to refine a future.” That should be the pack name. Do you know Tetsuya Shono? He is the manager on this shoe—he’a product manager on this shoe. He briefed this to me. And the theme is “play around this refined future.” The first thing he tried to get me to do is use more luxurious material. Crafty kind of look, very clean. But I just had this idea to do the complete opposite. And I presented it to them, and they were pretty happy about it. Then we just made it. But still play around with “refined future.”

How did you come up with the idea to tear away at the shoe?

Me growing up, buying sneakers, I wanted to keep them super clean. If the shoe is clean, out of the box, I would rather keep it that way. But what we tried to do for this one, it’s a precedent to encourage people to wear them. It’s not collector’s stuff. It’s just a shoe. You can wear them, and you should wear them. Another thing is, the whole look, the way we executed it, it’s very inspired by the old folks in Boston. I saw a lot of just old ladies and guys just rocking the 993 from the factory store. Just beat up, but still holding together. 

You had posted on your Instagram that none of the lines were unintentional. How much effort did it take, or how long did it take to kind of build out the exact look?

It takes us probably two rounds. So first, we got it back. Some of our projects, I have to revise it a couple of rounds. But this is more just what needs some fine tuning. Just make sure the story’s right. Because the first sample we got back, it looked too distressed. It started to look tacky and kind of corny. But then we kind of just toned it down. We don’t want to just deliver a crazy shoe. That was the main reason why we have to fine tune some lines to make sure it still highlights some of the original design. Try to find the balance between the old and new. That’s the task there.

I know you said it was inspired by the 990. Do you wish you had a chance to do it on that silhouette?

Well, that’s a great question. Maybe in the future, but right now, manufacturing in the States, it’s relatively different from Asia. Yeah, and the image of Made in USA is maybe more conservative. The Made in USA look, I think, is strong enough. Sometimes adding too much to those models [starts] to, like I said, look corny.

You said you hope you get to do this in the future. I saw that there were some scrapped colorways of the shoe as well, like the 1300 JP. Is this just a one-time thing, or is this an idea to keep making shoes like this, or?

Yeah, I saw those got leaked, right?

Yeah.

That’s not scrapped. Those are going to be future releases.

So there’s going to be more of it?

Yeah, we had fun working on them. We have other variations coming out soon. So it should be fun. In the head, I was trying to make 2002 like how the 580 was before. The whole impact of that model. Lineup, everything. That was just me. I don’t know what it was like at the business. That was just me when I’m designing colorways. I was trying to do a few different things by different execution. So I was saying that I was referencing 580 a lot. Not exactly the execution, but the idea of bringing back the 580.

Is it weird for you to get recognition for the products now, being that you were such a person that was under the radar at the brand before?

Yeah. First, I would say I don’t think it’s too much recognition. I think it’s OK. It seems fine. I didn’t realize I got too much recognition, but it is definitely more than before. I feel blessed. That’s for sure. People liking the shoe makes me happy. That doesn’t really matter to me at this stage. I was really just trying to keep my head down and just produce as much as possible with the brand. Really just try to learn and get the shoe right and hope people will like it. If I get any credit, awesome. If I don’t, and they still wear the shoe, I’m still just as happy.

I do want to say the very first couple to launch, the idea was created by Tetsuya Shono, who is the project manager of the whole project. Also, the designer that helped on that project’s name is Taylor Canby. I do want to give credit to them. And also the developer—one of the best developers—called Satoshi Takashima. They did a great job—laid a super-solid foundation.