NEW BALANCE x SBTG 990FEB4 'FELINE FURY'
It's mid-October 2018 and I just witnessed the next New Balance to be blessed with horween leather; the 990v4! My buddy on Instagram, who I like to call, 'The 990v4 King' @feelmeguilty, posted the 990FEB4 on his Instagram story...It was a WOW moment for me. I knew instantly that these would be the next pair I'd collaborate with SBTG on. Now I just needed them to hit the USA NB website, and receive potential discount because we all know how steep that horween price-tag is.
Late November/Early December my Instagram feed is flooded with the recently released KITH x NB project. I must admit; I was bummed I couldn't grab both fusion pairs, but I needed to stay strong knowing that 2 pairs of horween 990s would hit my wallet hard. I also received a text just prior to December from my buddy Erik at NB SF telling me that he THINKS his store will be getting the 990FEB4 on Dec. 15th. Now the impatient waiting game starts.
December 15: Erik was right...NB SF received the FEB4, but only in a very limited number. Without hesitation, I drove over to pick up the only sz11 they had in-store before I needed to attend my teams' last race event of the year at Sonoma Raceway. I was hoping to purchase 2 pairs from the store, but had to grab my 2nd from NB's website while supply lasted. The rumor was that these are 1 of 990 as the 990v4 will soon retire and be superseded by the 990v5.
December 26: Anyone heard of a postman dropping off a package at 6:20am? This was the first time I encountered this, and I’m glad I’m an early riser because my 2nd pair of 990FEB4 were finally here! Say hello to the blank canvas that SBTG would have his run with!
January 2: I was able to break away from work, and ship off this blank canvas 990FEB4 to SBTG. It’s always nerve-wracking to ship shoes internationally for me, but I had faith they’d reach him as my 991’s did in 2018.
January 14: Mark reached out to me to let me know that he received the 990’s. I’m sure most of you could agree that when you ship overseas, you could be a little uneasy until they arrive safely. Immediately after discussing the confirmation of the arrival; Mark and I started batting ideas back and forth for this custom. Mark insisted on running with the classic SBTG colorway being that we already had the black leather as a base, adding a tongue tag and taking the step in creativity further by adding a fidlock lacing system. I didn’t want to shut Mark down, but all honesty…I didn’t feel the fidlock system was right for this shoe. I told Mark to lay out the fidlock system on the shoe and to come up with different variations of his classic colorway so I could get a better perspective of what he was proposing.
For those that haven’t followed SBTG’s work, this is the classic colorway:
January 29: I wake up to two direct messages on Instagram from Mark; the messages I’ve been looking forward to…the renderings:
The gold ‘N’ sold me almost instantaniously. There’s just something about dark and earthy tones that just flow so well with gold. As usual, Mark killed it with this concept, and I chose the bottom of the two.
After solidifying the design rendition it was onto the extra features him and I discussed. Off the bat I told him that I wanted to abandon the fidlock lace system, and potentially save that for a future project. I did however want a lace cover of some sort similar to the ‘Monsoon’ Asics or 06’ Dunk SB. Mark sent me some ideas he had, and we agreed on a partial cover that would be stitched-in on the upper portion of the shoe, and would also host a place for his ‘SBTG Surplus’ tag w/ gold embroidery. These were the examples give of the lace cover and the tongue tag:
It gave me a clear perspective after seeing Mark’s examples for the lace cover and tongue tag, and after about a 45min discussion back and forth, we had a plan executed and in place!
February 18: I wake up to ‘@sbtg_offical mentioned you in their story’ on Instagram, and this was the content posted:
My eyes grew wide as I woke up from my deep sleep to see this message containing my future 990FEB4. Every little detail was exactly what I wanted; the shade of gold used on the N, dark hints of red in the piping, and greens used in the camouflage…a sheer masterpiece thus far and it isn’t even done yet!
Mark acknowledged the fact that I was letting him, “do his thing” on these. I wanted him ‘the artist’ to put down what he saw fit. Now we wait for the finishing touches!
February 20: The message I’ve been waiting for, “Done” was sent by Mark as I woke up early that morning. The tracking number and these photos were emailed to me shortly after.
I wanted to go one step further than my previous SBTG project, so this time we made a nice lace cover that covers the upper portion of the shoe, added some bright contrasting red laces, and complimentary lace lock at the base of the laces. I also wanted people to know just exactly who these were for so you’ll find my last name on the heel tab and SBTG’s signature ‘wings’ logo on the heel. It’s still mind blowing that this is my 2nd project with SBTG.
February 25: DHL showed up at my door with the goods. I ripped open the box and began lacing the shoes immediately! Along with the shoes came a SBTG tee in a vibrant red to match the laces.
March 2: We finally had a break in the rainy weather so I took fool advantage to capture the on-foot shots!
I want to thank Mark Oni aka SBTG for bringing this project to life, and really pushing the envelope of creativity. This is EXACTLY what I wanted out of the v4. I look forward to our 2020 project.