Lets talk to Yue Wu

For the release of the Sneakersnstuff x New Balance ML574SNS we asked asked our friend and Parisian artist Yue Wu to design a graphic inspired by the shoes. He killed it as usual. We sat down with Yue to talk about his design process and his passion for New Balance.

– Yue, for the people that don’t know you, how would you introduce yourself?
I’m Yue, I’m an artist born in Beijing and raised and based in Paris! All my craft stems from drawing. I work for brands & various entities doing work ranging from illustrations to directing animations and tackle various mediums such as photography, ceramics and more… And I love my sneakers.

– You live in Paris, does the city play a role in your creative approach to projects?
Paris plays an important role in my work; it has a good mix of culture, toughness and exigence. French artistic history is very rich and Paris is the heart of it!

– Why do you think New Balance has such a cult following?
New Balance has became cult and classic because people chose it overtime, it was never heavily marketed to be cool as other brands sometimes do. Real sneaker fiends always loved the quality and comfort, same goes for the elderly or people like Steve Jobs! It’s still somewhat of a low key connoisseur sport shoe brand.

– Tell us about your relationship to the old 577GPI. You really like that shoe, don’t you?
The 577 is my favorite NB silhouette, and the 577GPI Erik is the best iteration ever on that shoe for me! The mix of material from the shiny leather to butter tumbled leather, hairy soft suede and nice buttery perforated nubuck is just the best. All those shade of green to brown utilize perfectly each panel on that shoe, then that crazy bright pink red fabric for the lining and the clean white sole… The mismatched medial side added to the already impressive mix of color/texture, pfff, just killed it. It’s the perfect balance between very wearable but very special.

I’m very excited to wear that color combo again 10 years after because I had to let go my pair of 577’s a couple years back because the lining broke and they didn’t fit no more.

Fun fact: I was wearing those when I met Kanye who came to check on Kid Cudi’s “Day N Nite” music video I was working on. He took serious notice of the shoe, I actually took it off my feet to show him and in return he showed me the sample of his unreleased LV shoe. Fun times!

– You kindly designed this SNS hoodie for us. Please talk us through the process of how you work, from initial briefing to final execution.
I wanted to show all the different elements that made the 577GPI Erik special to me, and it’s really all about the colors. And I got to model for the super dope photographer Louise Carrasco. It was such a pleasure and honor to work on a project that made sense on so many levels for me!

– Thanks Yué, final question, grilled cheese or croque monsieur?
Both!

Get your hands on the Yue Hoodie right here.

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