SAM PEARCE & WRITING THE FUTURE OF NEW BALANCE MADE IN UK

Cumbria is a county in the North West of England renowned for its natural beauty, home to a national park that attracts outdoor enthusiasts from across the globe: the Lake District. Although its rugged mountains, breathtaking ribbon lakes and quaint market towns are what Cumbria is widely renowned for, there is also a village on its coast home to one of the most important establishments in the sneaker world: New Balance’s Flimby Factory.

For 40 years, Flimby has been home to New Balance and its highly-coveted namesake factory — an organisation that has continuously upheld the importance of premium British craft, resulting in some of the world’s most revered sneakers ever created. New Balance’s Made in UK acts as a seal of approval — a signifier that the sneaker in question has been meticulously created by skilled craftspeople using the best materials available.

Samuel Pearce is a designer who is deeply involved in the world of New Balance and its Flimby factory, not only as the Creative Design Manager of New Balance Made in UK, but as an avid collector of archival rarities, sitting somewhere at the intersection between New Balance historian and engineer. As the legendary Made in UK line turned 40 this year, END. sat down with Samuel Pearce to discuss his love for the brand, his approach to design and what the next 40 years might look like for New Balance and its iconic Flimby factory.

Your design approach can often be described as both progressive and heritage inspired, something which is perfectly captured by your X-90 sneaker. What is it about combining progressiveness and heritage that inspires your design approach? 

The sneaker industry has changed a lot over the years. In the ‘80s for example, it was very much performance-led design. Now, sneakers have been adopted for lifestyle purposes, so it’s about merging those two worlds — which is something we’ve had success with at New Balance. The X-90 model, that was 2018 now, but it’s an approach that’s rung true in the models we’ve done since. It’s all about bringing those performance technologies and the rich heritage New Balance has to create a really unique design line.

40 years of Made in UK has resulted in many sneaker icons, like the 1500 or the 991, to name just a few. It’s a big question, but what do you envision the next 40 years looking like for the legendary Flimby factory?

Well, first off, I think keep doing what we’re doing — we’re well known for quality, fit and comfort. Made in UK also has its own USP with locally-sourced materials from Europe, and having that quality with products that others can’t offer. We’ll always do the bring backs and ensure we put the time and effort in to get all of the details right — the branding, the little nuances that maybe the hardcore fans would notice and other people would just view as our standard, which is what we want to achieve. In the long run, it’s trying to think about how shoe production can continue to thrive in a domestic sense — that’s why I joined the company. We will also continue to utilise our back catalogue of materials, some of which are over 15 years old and we don’t throw away.

As New Balance and the Flimby factory moves forward in the future, there will be an increasing emphasis on sustainable materials and craft. How is New Balance approaching this? 

New Balance, as a whole, has its own goals in terms of using materials which adhere to specific standards. Made in UK, I guess, has a slightly different approach in the way we source things. Regenerative farming is a key one that we would like to focus on — sourcing from the right suppliers, working with the farmers to use the land properly and get the best materials out of that. It’s a case of learning and improving processes each season and implementing things as we go, with the aim of building product in a more responsible manner.

Are there any new materials, perhaps those from a sustainability point of view, that excite you for the future of not just New Balance and the Flimby factory, but footwear in general?  

Yeah, I think 3D printing is something that hasn’t quite come to fruition yet because of the cost and complication of it, although it has been talked about for the last decade. I think it’s a really exciting thing that the whole industry is waiting to jump on, but it hasn’t quite got there yet. In terms of what we’re trying to do, there’s some interesting stuff with mycelium,  mushroom-based materials, with the view to replace traditional materials or foams that are petroleum based. It’s an amazing concept that feels far away, but it’s maybe closer than we imagine. Also, as I mentioned before, regenerative farming is so important in terms of doing things right and using the land in in the right way — investing the right people and processes, rather than just thinking about the final product in hand.

You’re well known in the New Balance community not just for your decade-plus tenure at the brand, but also for your extensive personal archive of New Balance rarities. How do you utilise this archive to inform future designs, and how does this fit into the future of Flimby?

I started collecting New Balance before I joined the company. When I joined, I realised there was only a finite amount of product to source. I’m kind of part historian, part engineer, where if a company is 120 years old, I want to understand the whole timeline before I can add my own concepts to that. So, it was a case of building my own archive as a reference point to influence those designs. You can see how that works — by having such a long history, and by referencing it a lot, you legitimise the concepts you’re working on, whether it's trail shoes or ‘70s running-inspired product. You can see how those worlds have meshed together in products like the 327, where you use modern technology through a fashion lens, but it’s all referenced from one of our early running shoes which is the 320. Then the 9060 which launched this year — it’s a modern take on a very heritage-based product. It’s all about storytelling as well as future proofing our design ethos.

Out of your archive, is there a particular silhouette you would like to recreate, or take design cues from, in the future?

Well, with a brand with such a large history, there’s a lot of stuff consumers just won’t know New Balance has done. A lot of the shoes we’re bringing back at the moment are straight from the archive, but people think they’re new product that’s been designed now. With that history in mind, trying to pick something that jumps out is maybe tough. It’s all about reacting to trends — you can have all of this great product, but if it isn’t right for the trends, then a good product can just get lost. We’ve got some really good trail shoes from the early ‘90s, one called the T555 that’s never been recreated — it’s a great model. Then there’s a running shoe that came out in 1999 called the 1000, it’s got reflective piping all around it and these swooping panels, like anything else from our back catalogue — that’s an exciting one I’d like to see come back as a fresh take on millennial running.

How important will collaborative footwear be for the future of New Balance and Flimby?

New Balance were on the collaborative trend very early, we did launches with Japanese partners in the late ‘90s for the 580 sneaker. It’s something we’ve been doing for a long time. In terms of Made in UK specifically, the shoes that we did with accounts in the mid-2000s are still held as some of the best out there in terms of collaborations. Some of them sell for £10,000 online. Back then, we would make like 97 pairs for collaborations — it wasn’t big business, but they were special. Now, all of this time later, people have started to look back at collaborations and understand which ones were the big hitters. What we’ve done in recent history is go back to that style of really specialist product that’s right for the market and tells the right stories. It’s something that will continue for a long time — people trust us to make the right decision with collaborations.

In my opinion, what I’d like to see is collaborations in the sense of trying to problem solve. Maybe it’s other brands or tech companies, whatever it might be, to solve issues we’re seeing in the market now, whether that’s sustainability, longevity or creating a whole new visual. It would be exciting to see how that evolves.

Do you have any advice for the up-and-coming designers who will help to shape the future of New Balance and the Flimby factory? 

Now more than ever designers can have an impact on our future. You actually imagine and build the products, so if you believe in something, you should always try and follow that. If you want to build things better and select the right materials, you are in the unique position to do that as a designer. I’ve been at New Balance for 12 years because I believe in the product we do, how we build it and the fact it’s still family owned — they’re all things I believe in and champion. I think it’s important for the next generation coming through to think about what they want to stand for — it’s important, especially in today’s climate, they are the ones that will ultimately shape the future of this industry.