Some shoes we just wear. We debate others endlessly.
New Balance’s mutant 1906L clearly falls into the latter category. New Balance’s shoe, introduced last year, is a mix of a sneaker and a loafer, which the internet calls the ‘Snoafer’. It is a mutt-like design, caught in the liminal space between informal and formal.
Whatever else the Snoafer may be, it has been polarizing. Versions of the shoes remain sold out (although it’s unclear how many were produced), but detractors say the Snoafer is downright ugly.
In an edited conversation, Jon Caramanica, Stella Bugbee and Jacob Gallagher, three members of The New York Times staff (two of whom actually purchased the Snoafers) discuss the Frankensteinian merits of the shoe, how it has been received by their respective family members and whether it has also been well received. actually ugly enough.
STELLA BUGBEE There’s something very perverse about these shoes.
JACOB GALLAGHER I saw someone say they don’t go together in the way that orange juice and toothpaste do, but perversely? Say more.
BUGBEE They don’t know what they want to become, and yet they are unapologetically themselves. That tension makes me feel uncomfortable. In a good way, I think.
GALLAGHER I kind of felt that way when I saw them online, but when I put them on after I bought them and looked down, I was like, “Oh, that’s all there is?”
JON CARAMANICA When I saw them, I immediately thought of, say, vintage Geox shoes – the kind of brand you might see in a print ad deep in the cheap pages of a men’s magazine. Or even worse: Cole Haan’s terrible attempts at athletic office shoes. All of us hate those things.
GALLAGHER You’re talking about LunarGrands by Cole Haanwho were a monstrosity. They drew attention to their juxtapositions. The upper was chic, while the sole, which was often neon, was not only informal, but also futuristic. At least, that’s what Cole Haan wanted you to think. However, the 1906Ls blend together. They resemble the creature at the end of ‘The Substance’. They take two different halves and twist them into one eerie whole.
BUGBEE The response I got when I posted photos of the 1906Ls on Instagram was overwhelmingly negative, which only made me think they were cooler. If everyone hates something, it has to be doing it something right?
GALLAGHER But getting back to your earlier point, Stella. Do you think people thought they were perverted or just ugly? Are people responding to this shoe because it’s new or because they find it unattractive? That is an important distinction.
BUGBEE Don’t know. I don’t think the 1906Ls are ugly, but that was the consensus from my friends and family.
CARAMANICA My counter point is that they are not ugly enough! Especially the black pair.
GALLAGHER I’m here with Jon. They are not ugly. They definitely don’t fall into the category of Jon’s beloved Balenciaga Triple S, a sneaker that knowingly hit itself on every branch of the ugly tree.
BUGBEE People especially hated the little ‘N’ at the top.
CARAMANICA That’s what’s funny about the “N” – that’s the gesture on this shoe that might feel a bit to touch radical? Like a combination of a pair of $3 “breathable sock shoes” you’d find on Temu and the very long tail of Virgil Abloh’s sense of play with text on clothes.
GALLAGHER The “N” is perhaps the riskiest thing about the shoe! Who will put a logo there? That’s part of the appeal for me. They’re giving something new to a hype consumer (after all, they remain sold out) while knowingly moving into geriatric territory.
CARAMANICA Can I offer two more reference points for shoes that have tried to walk this tightrope before? First, my beloved Jordan Two3 Cavvy from the early 2000s, which is essentially a Prada loafer with an athletic tilt sole and an accentuated elastic top. A messy mix of casual and formal. And secondly, there is the Nike Air Verdanaa golf shoe, also from the early 2000s.
In their day I hated both. But at least I came across its elegance with the Cavvy. That is, perhaps the 1906L will only need twenty years to become normalized and appreciated.
BUGBEE I place them more in the category of Nike Air Rift Tabis – sneakers with mutant ambitions.
CARAMANICA Yes, but the Rifts have no formality whatsoever.
BUGBEE The 1906Ls do not feels formal to me. They retain their sneakeriness.
CARAMANICA Then it sounds like you want… a sneaker?
BUGBEE No, I wanted a comfortable slip-on, with the shape of a loafer and the sole of a sneaker that would make my whole family want to walk ten feet away from me in public.
GALLAGHER So you popular the repulsion?
BUGBEE Yes, I love a little troll.
