J Crew and New Balance collab once more on the very pretty 998 'National Park'

American outfitter J. Crew and preeminent puveyor of luxe suede trainers New Balance team up, once more, like all them lads in the Mission Impossible series, back for one last job, on a new drop: the ‘National Park’.

Set in moody tonal shades of various oranges and sands (influenced by Death Valley in California-Nevada bordering Mojave Desert) and blues and navies (influenced by Crater Lake in the Cascade Mountains of southern Oregon, formed by the now-collapsed Mount Mazama volcano) to evoke the terrifying power and aesthetic wonder of Mother Nature, the two new trainers are both verifiably 10 out of 10s. 

Each pair is crafted in the US from premium American suede (GO ‘MERICA! USA! USA!) at the company’s Skowhegan, Maine factory and I don’t know if you’ve ever Googled ‘Skowhegan’ but we just did and let me tell you: it is a picture-postcard paradise. With this particular collab, around £10 of the retail price of these sneakers will be donated to the National Park Foundation to make sure that it stays that way, too.

The J. Crew x New Balance ‘National Park’ pack (trainers £180 each) will be available from J. Crew’s website from 26th January