New Balance 991v2 Salehe Bembury: The Ugliest Sneakers I Love
Price: $275 [Under Retail on eBay]
Why Buy?
The New Balance 991v2 Salehe Bembury offers great comfort and eye catching style.
Why Avoid?
The New Balance 991v2 Salehe Bembury will be extremely difficult to style, and doesn’t come cheap.
Specs:
| Model | 991v2 |
| Height | Low |
| Materials | Suede / Rubber / PU / PEBA / EVA |
| Size | 13 |
| Weight | 500 g / 1 lb 1.73 oz |
| Construction | Cemented |
| Country of Origin | United Kingdom |
History
It’s no secret on this website that my favorite New Balance sneaker at the moment is the 991v2. It offers an amazing blend of retro styling with extreme comfort that my grey pair has become my go-to any time I’m traveling to a new city. If you can only get one New Balance sneaker (and price isn’t a concern…), I think the 991v2 is the one to go for.
Thankfully, after being a bit stingy on offering collabs on the 991v1, the 991v2 has had many collabs over its relatively short lifetime. In fact, the sneaker launched with one – the Stone Island collab.
This time, however, New Balance gave one of their most prolific collaborators – Salehe Bembury – the chance to put his fingerprints – literally – on the 991v2. Bembury is not known for his subtle sneakers. He regularly using bright and bold colors mixed with unique designs in order to make his sneakers pop.
However, unlike just about every other Salehe collaboration, this one ended up sitting on shelves. In fact, as I write this a full month after release, around half the sizes are still available on New Balance’s website.
Knowing that you still have the option to pick these up for retail (or less), I thought it might be worth asking: should you? Let’s dive in and find out.
Looks
Upper
When it comes to the upper of the New Balance 991v2 Salehe Bembury, there is a whole lot going on. The majority of the upper is covered in a very bright, very hairy purple suede. This feels extremely premium in hand, though I do have some durability concerns. Simply sliding around in the box during shipping left many areas looking sanded down.
Accenting the purple suede, up front you’ll find highly reflective grey support panels near the toe box, overlaid onto purple mesh. Moving slightly back, a smaller “N” logo is also reflective, though this time in purple.
Continuing around the sneaker, where you would typically find the “991v2” print is instead an orange version of Bembury’s actual thumbprint, a signature for all his sneakers. Finishing off around the back, a yellow heel cap sits just over a blue and yellow “V2” script on the heel.
Speaking of blue and yellow, it’s the same colors you can find on the co-branded Salehe and New Balance tongue label. On this pair, it’s done up in a woven fabric.
Inside, the sneaker uses a green lining and a cork insole.
Mid- and Outsole
As you come down to the bottom half of the New Balance 991v2 Salehe Bembury, you’ll find even more bright and bold colors.
The midsole itself comes in foams of several different colors. An extremely soft foam can be found in purple on the exterior side and white on the interior side. This is accented by a tan foam – much less soft – around the heel. These two colors are accented by pink candy-colored pods and a grey heel cap with “new balance” pressed in.
Underneath, black and neon green rubber provide even more colors to the palatte. There is also a visible cut out to the soft purple foam along the length of the sneaker. The bright green does come up a bit onto the toe, so it is visible when you’re wearing the sneaker.
Summary
The New Balance 991v2 Salehe Bembury—aka “Colors be the Palate”—more than lives up to its name. Between the hairy purple suede, green lining, orange thumbprint, and pink pods, it’s a riot of color. In total, there are over a dozen distinct shades on this sneaker. And while that makes them visually arresting, it also makes them incredibly hard to wear in any traditional sense.
Still, I love them. Maybe it’s my affection for the silhouette, maybe it’s the sheer absurdity of the design—but every time I put them on, I’m genuinely excited. Do I look a little ridiculous? Yeah. Do I care? Not enough to stop.
If you’re wondering how to style them, I’ve found that slightly toned-down preppy fits work surprisingly well. Think soft pastels, polos, or loafers swapped for sneakers. That mix of playful and classic bridges the New Balance heritage with Bembury’s bold flair.
Are these practical? Absolutely not. But if you’re the kind of person who finds joy in wearing something loud and unapologetic, they might just win you over like they did me.
Fit & Comfort
Fit
The New Balance 991v2 Salehe Bembury fits the same as any other New Balance 991v2. Well, as close as they can be. For as premium as the materials are, the Flimby factory seems to have a bit of a problem making their sneakers entirely consistently. 991v2s, even in the same colorway, might fit slightly larger or smaller depending on which batch you get.
That being said, in general the 991v2 will fit mostly true to size, though a bit smaller than the 990v6 that is made in the US. This is most noticeable in the toe box, which comes to more of a point on the UK-made models.
The good news is that the minimal structure of these sneakers means they are more forgiving if you missize.
I got these in a size 13, which is the size I wear in nearly every sneaker. If I’m wearing thicker socks, or wearing these on a really hot day, I probably would prefer a half size larger. But since they don’t make a 13.5, I’ll just wear thinner socks and be OK.
Comfort
The New Balance 991v2, including this Salehe Bembury version, is the most comfortable shoe in their line up, as far as I am concerned. It manages to pull from both their traditionally supportive models and their softer foams in a way no other sneaker can.
Whereas the Fuel Cell focused runners and 990v6 are incredibly soft, they don’t have the support that provides all day comfort that the earlier New Balance 99X models are known for. At the same time, those older models – such as the 990v3 or the 2002R – use much harder foams that don’t have that initial plushness that people have come to expect.
The 991v2 manages to strike a near perfect balance. Inside, they use a blend of fuel cell directly under your heel and the ball of your feet, but wrap it in a very stiff polyurethane. It’s great.
If I was going to be really putting in the miles, I might prefer the older, stiffer styles, but for most days this hits the perfect sweet spot.
The only real draw back comfort wise is the lack of padding overall. It’s clear that when New Balance designed these to look like retro runners, they had to remove padding.
Still, this is absolutely one of the most comfortable sneakers you can buy today.
Materials & Construction
Materials
While the New Balance 991v2 Salehe Bembury goes crazy with the colors, they didn’t go all that much different with the materials compared to a standard pair.
The most notable change is the switch from pigskin to cow suede. It’s a bit less soft and stretchy, but unless you’re comparing directly, it’s hard to notice.
Other differences? The tongue label is fabric instead of leather, and the insole lining is cork instead of fabric. Some people claim the cork changes the feel, but at around 1mm thick, it’s more about looks than function.
On the rest of the sneaker, it’s classic 991v2. Not a bad thing.
The mesh and grey supports are both man-made materials. Your lining will come in a similarly synthetic nylon, as is the thumb print. Similarly, the plastic eyelet panel and heel cap are plastic.
The blue at the bottom of the tongue and the yellow on the heel are (pretty bad) fake leather, though you’ll probably forget about those two panels almost immediately.
The insole, other than the thin cork layer, is a dense closed cell foam. There isn’t a ton of comfort gained from it, but the midsole does a good enough job you probably won’t care.
Underfoot, the sneaker blends two foams. The heel uses a stiff, long-lasting polyurethane—standard for retro runners. The forefoot and heel pods use New Balance’s FuelCell, a nitrogen-infused blend of PEBA and EVA. This version leans heavier on PEBA, making it springier than what you’d find in a 990v6.
Finishing everything off, the 991v2 uses a rubber outsole which I’ve found to be surprisingly durable.
Construction
The New Balance 991v2 Salehe Bembury is made in the Flimby factory using cemented construction. This style of construction is, by far, the most common way to make a sneaker. Basically, the upper is sewn together and then glued directly to the midsole.
This sort of construction offers great flexibility and is affordable to make, but is nearly impossible to resole. That means when the rubber or foams are worn down, these sneakers are trash.
As for the Flimby factory, New Balance is the only main line brand to make sneakers in the UK. To get other shoes made in UK, you’ll need to jump to something like Crown Northampton. Great shoes for sure, but at $900 for their top end models, there probably isn’t too many people cross shopping these with those.
How Much Does the New Balance 991v2 Salehe Bembury Cost?
Alright, the section you’ve all been waiting for. Just how much did the New Balance 991v2 Salehe Bembury Cost? A fairly shocking $275. And that was before the tariffs that have made recent 991v2s significantly more expensive. This is the most expensive 991v2, a $25 premium over the standard pair and even surpassing other collabs like Kith (priced at $260) and thisisneverthat (priced at $270).
While that is a somewhat absurd price to pay for a pair non-resoleable sneakers made mostly standard sneaker materials, I don’t think the price is what caused these to sit. Sure, the Kith and thisisneverthat pairs were priced slightly lower, but both of them are trading hands at well above their retail price and could have easily been priced higher than this pair.
The good news is that not only can you get some pairs still directly from New Balance, most sizes are going for under retail. Or, at least under retail before fees. Sizing plays a larger role than I would have guessed for a sneaker that basically didn’t sell out, but you can check current pricing on eBay here.
Are the New Balance 991v2 Salehe Bembury Worth It?
So, taking a look at the design, cost, comfort, and more, are the New Balance 991v2 Salehe Bembury worth it?
That’s honestly a pretty tough question for me to answer.
On one hand, I personally adore these sneakers. They are comfortable, interesting, made in a first world country, and look great sitting on the shelf when you’re not wearing them. However, I’m far from the standard buyer. As a shoe reviewer I typically have somewhere between 50-100 pairs in my closet at any given time. Having an entirely impractical and expensive pair of shoes is a perfectly reasonable thing for me to do.
However, despite the love I have for these, I don’t think I could recommend them. At least not to someone who doesn’t love bright colors enough that you already bought a pair without waiting to see the reviews.
Even 10% below retail, you’re still coming out of pocket with $250 for a pair of shoes that is incredibly hard to pull off.
Should you own a pair of 991v2s? No question—they’re excellent. Should it be this pair? Probably not—unless you’re already halfway in love with it.