The New Balance 650 Gets A Familiar “Royal” Look For Womens

An 80s colorway meets 80s hardware.

Matt Varga April 3, 2024

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The New Balance 550 may be ahead in pure sales numbers, but the New Balance 650 plays no small part in guiding how NB relates to the world of basketball shoes. Staying on that theme, any sneakerhead will be able to recognize the influences at play on their newest version, a blue & black women’s release.

To spell it out, the impact of the Air Jordan 1 “Royal” very much stretches to this release. Blue leather dresses the collar, medial branding and the toebox, also landing on the heel NB stamp and outsole, as close as a 1-to-1 mapping of that 1985 pair as possible. The all-leather composition makes for another easy comparison point, but these are still a very successful end product- even if the motivation behind its design is easy to track. Just as well, they present another stylish edition that while likely not entirely suited for the court, offers a way to tap into those sensibilities as a daily driver.

This New Balance 650 doesn’t have a concrete release date at the time of writing. In lieu of that, expect these rolling out to NB.com and select retailers in the near future, arriving at a $140 MSRP figure.

In related news, take a look at the Jaden Smith New Balance MSFTSrep 0.01 “Panda.”

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Written by

Matt Varga, Junior Editor

Matt Varga is an Editor at SneakerNews. Initially earning a degree in Video Arts and Technology, he got his start in the music world, video editing and writing coverage primarily on hip-hop and electronic. A long-standing interest in sneakers eventually led him to switching over to the footwear side of things. An avid collector, his time in the hobby stretches back more than a decade. Though always a contentious argument, his favorite sneaker of all time comes down to the Air Jordan 1 “Black Toe” and Air Jordan 5 “Laney,” his first ever pick-up. When he’s not writing, you can find Matt cooking, traveling, attending concerts and when weather permits, on the handball court.