Pigeon-Holed

With hype brewing for this Saturday's Staple Design "Black Pigeon" New Balance 577 collabo with size?, I couldn't help but bust these out of the box to see the original one that started them all...

For those of you who don't know who Jeff Ng is, he goes by "jeffstaple", the founder of Staple Design.  Originally agraphic designer, he discovered his passion for fashion at the Parsons School of Design.  An internship with a streetwear clothing company quickly turned into his own business by silk-screening t-shirts in his spare time.

After he walked into Triple Five Soul in SoHo in 1997 wearing one of his tees, the owner fell in love with the design and placed an order for a dozen of Ng's tees.  From there, Ng launched his Staple Design mens collection and then his own store (Reed Space) in 2002.  Staple Design describes itself as "a positive social contagion".

The shoe that started the Staple sneaker craze were the Nike SB Dunk Low "Pigeons", which caused riots on release day in 2005 (roughly 200 pairs were released).  

Released in 2008, the New Balance 575 "Pigeon" x STAPLE (pictured in this CNI blog post) dropped in a grey/red colorway, the first of the three Staple "Pigeon" NBs.

The second NB, a white version of the 575, released in 2009, with 1077 pairs being rumored as the total distribution.  The third one drops this Saturday.....but this original grey/red colorway remains one of my favorite sneakers of all time!