New Balance calls this one “Mulled wine with fast track and pebble.” Three colors, named on the brand’s own product page, for a 1890 that is listed as coming soon with no date attached to it. The release feeds have shortened that to “Mulled Wine,” which is the easier handle and also drops two thirds of what New Balance actually wrote down. Fast track and pebble are doing visible work on this shoe, and one of them is the reason the thing reads burgundy rather than plain maroon.
The 1890 belongs to New Balance’s ABZORB family, the corner of the line where the brand keeps building shoes that look like mid-2000s stability runners and sells them as lifestyle product. New Balance’s own copy for the platform is unusually sentimental about it, calling ABZORB a living tribute to the company’s legacy of innovation rather than describing what the foam does. That is a tell. ABZORB is being sold as a badge now, not as a cushioning claim, and the shoes carrying it are designed to look engineered rather than to feel like anything in particular.
It has become a real family in the process. The 1890A has had a run of its own here, including a silver metallic pair in October and a cowprint one in August, and the 1890P sits alongside both on New Balance’s site. The base 1890 is the quiet one in that group, which is part of why a colorway gets to do this much of the talking. New Balance has also already run the 1890 in a Nordic Green that never reached the US, so the silhouette’s short history here is mostly a question of which markets got which colorway rather than of design changes.
The upper is deep burgundy mesh with synthetic panels wrapping the sides and running toward the toe, and the curved overlays are outlined in silver that reads almost white against the wine. Those outlines follow the same arc as the oversized N on each side, so the whole lateral panel resolves into one shape rather than a logo sitting on top of a shoe. Black takes the heel counter and the toe bumper. The tongue carries a section of bright red mesh at the top, visible from above and from nowhere else, and the laces are black with white speckles. ABZORB is printed small on the lateral midsole, where it functions as the only wordmark on the shoe apart from the N itself. Underneath, the burgundy midsole shows exposed cushioning pods, and the outsole splits into dark grey traction blocks with burgundy sections running through the forefoot and heel.
That red tongue panel is the detail worth pointing at. It is the only true red on the shoe, it is only visible looking straight down, and it is almost certainly the “fast track” in the official name. New Balance put a color in the shoe’s title that a buyer will not see in a three-quarter product photo, which is the kind of decision that gets flattened the moment a release feed shortens the name.
Shoes like this are why New Balance’s lifestyle business has held up while other brands chased silhouettes with more obvious stories. The 1890 has no heritage tale, no athlete and no anniversary. What it has is a construction that photographs as technical and a color department willing to name a shoe three things. That is a repeatable product, and repeatable is worth more over a fiscal year than a grail is. The risk runs the other way: a family of near-identical ABZORB shoes separated mostly by colorway is exactly the pattern that exhausted the 990 line’s audience, and New Balance is now running the 1890, the 1890A and the 1890P at once.
New Balance lists the pair at $179.99, which puts it level with the ABZORB 1890 and the 1890P on its own site and twenty dollars under the JJJJound 1890 at $199.99. That is the whole pricing structure of the family visible in one place, with the collaboration carrying the premium and everything in-line holding the same number. Resale history on the 1890 is thin and general-release colorways have not moved above retail, so this is a shoe to buy at a store rather than to chase.
The New Balance 1890 is style code U18903SM in Mulled wine with fast track and pebble, listed at $179.99 on New Balance’s own site, where it currently shows a notify-me button rather than a date. Sneaker Bar Detroit reports it for Holiday 2026 at newbalance.com and select retailers. New Balance has not published a release date, so treat the window as unconfirmed until it does.
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