Aminé Turns a Sixth-Grade Name Tag Into a New Balance 992

Club Banana’s October 2 sale of Aminé’s first Made in USA New Balance is listed as sold out, and the wider release reaches NewBalance.com on October 9.

Aminé kept the wooden name tag he decorated at Oregon’s Outdoor School in sixth grade, and it was still hanging on his childhood bedroom door when he came home for Christmas about three years ago. Finding it again started the whole project, which became the Aminé x New Balance 992 “Outdoor School,” his first pair in the brand’s Made in USA line. He announced the shoe on Thursday, September 10, and the first pairs went out through Club Banana on October 2, with a wider release set for October 9.

 

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Signal. What happened: Aminé and New Balance put the first pairs of the 992 “Outdoor School” on sale through Club Banana on October 2, ahead of a wider release on October 9. Exact object: the Aminé x New Balance Made in USA 992 “Outdoor School,” style U992NE, a unisex sneaker in brown pigskin suede with burgundy and dark maroon patent leather overlays. When and where: Club Banana went first at $220 and now lists the pair as sold out; NewBalance.com follows at 10:00 a.m. Eastern on October 9 at $219.99, as a member product, with other channels varying. Source: New Balance’s own product listing and Club Banana’s product page. Why it matters: it is Aminé’s first Made in USA project with the brand, and its subject is a public school program rather than a trend.

His announcement called the wood cookie a “true Oregonian membership card” and signed off the way a camp counselor would, with a warning not to run. Aminé, a Grammy-nominated Portland rapper, has spent several years turning local memories into New Balance product, and Club Banana, his own creative platform, is where this release began, as the glow-in-the-dark Biblioteca did a year earlier.

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New Balance’s own product copy reads like a field guide to the show. Smooth brown pigskin suede stands in for dirt and soil, while glossy patent leather overlays in burgundy and dark maroon are meant to evoke wood, worms, rocks and foliage. The listing specifies a pigsuede and mesh upper with patent leather overlays, an ABZORB midsole and a rubber outsole, and notes that the pair contains pig leather. Aminé’s sig wordmark sits on the heel, the tongue insert carries Club Banana branding, the insoles are custom, and a second set of laces is included. The shape is the familiar 992, so the story lives in the materials and the small details.

The extras do the nar. Each pair ships in a box built to look like a fishing tackle box. The hangtag is a wooden “wood cookie” stamped “Horizon Cabin,” echoing the name tags campers decorate at Outdoor School, and it comes with charms shaped like a frog, a compass, a whistle, a slug and a fish for personalizing it. The insoles carry graphics that reference the program’s curriculum sheets.

 

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The 992 suits a story about school because the model is itself a commemoration. It debuted in 2006 for New Balance’s 100th anniversary as the second chapter of a 99X series that began with the 990 in 1982, and it introduced ABZORB SBS cushioning, a non-cellular elastomer used in place of conventional foam. It became closely tied to Steve Jobs, and it returned in a 2020 re-issue in five colorways, built from pigskin suede with breathable mesh, the same family of materials Aminé’s pair uses.

Made in USA is a deliberate step up for Aminé. New Balance says its Made in USA footwear contains a domestic value of 70 percent or more, and the line is a limited portion of its US sales, framed around more than 75 years of American craftsmanship. His earlier work with the brand ran from banana-themed 610s through the 740 to the glow-in-the-dark ABZORB 2000 “Biblioteca” of October 2025, a bright green tribute to his local library that also sent early pairs through Club Banana ahead of a global rollout. The 992 follows the same sequence, with a school memory where the library card used to be.

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Outdoor School is not a brand story. Oregon’s version launched in 1957 as a field science program in Southern Oregon, and a November 2016 ballot initiative, Measure 99, set up public funding so that every public school student can spend a week in the program in fifth or sixth grade. Oregon State University Extension has distributed that money to school districts since 2017. Programs are run by school districts, education service districts, nonprofits and partnerships with natural resource professionals, which makes it a shared experience across the state rather than one institution’s property. Aminé went in sixth grade, to the Milk Creek campsite. Oregon sixth graders decorate the wooden name tags during the week, which is why New Balance’s version arrives with charms to hang on it.

One line in New Balance’s listing is worth reading closely. It states that sales of the shoe do not commercially benefit Outdoor School, and Aminé’s own announcement did not say whether any money from the pair goes to the program.

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Sign-ups ran through clubbanana.com ahead of the first sale on October 2, which was priced at $220, with a limit of one pair per checkout and all sales final. The second opening is October 9 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern on NewBalance.com, where the pair is a member product at $219.99 in unisex sizing from men’s 4.5 to 15, in standard D width. Members are account holders on the site or people who signed up in store, availability in select New Balance stores is for members only, and other channels may vary. New Balance also caps orders at one pair, excludes the shoe from promotions and lists it as non-returnable. The Club Banana first, New Balance second order repeats last year’s Biblioteca rollout, when early pairs went to Club Banana before a global rel through NewBalance.com and select retailers, and both launches fall in the same early-October window.