Every Now and Then Turns a New Balance 992 Into Chicago’s Grand Reopen

Joe Freshgoods hands the spotlight to his own store this time, dressing a New Balance 992 in mint for Every Now and Then’s Chicago return.

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• A Green Thread Years in the Making
• What the Mint Colorway Actually Looks Like
• July 11 at 1843 West Chicago Avenue
• The Store Gets the Signature, Not the Man
• The Chicago Names Behind the Campaign
• Where U992EN1 Sits in the Made in USA Story

Shoe fans have been chasing this shoe for the better part of a year, and most of them did not even know they were chasing it. A green New Balance 992 first turned up on camera almost by accident, sitting in the background of an office scene during a campaign video for Joe Freshgoods’ Fresh Foam RCVRY slipper. Someone paused the frame, noticed the color blocking, and the internet did what it does. From that point, the shoe now known by its style code, U992EN1, spent months surfacing in leaked shots and community roundups before finally arriving with a confirmed release plan tied to something bigger than a single sneaker drop. It is arriving alongside the reopening of Every Now and Then, the Chicago boutique Joseph Robinson built as a home base for his design work and, increasingly, for the city around him.

That distinction matters more than it might first appear. Robinson has spent close to six years building one of the more consistent creative relationships in footwear, turning New Balance’s archive into a kind of open notebook for his own ideas about Chicago, nostalgia, and craft. This 992 is not filed under his name. It is filed under the store’s.

 

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Up close, the shoe reads as considered rather than loud. A warm, gold tinted mesh forms the base of the upper, the kind of tone that looks aged straight out of the box, a signature move for New Balance’s Made in USA program under design director Teddy Santis. Over that base, suede panels arrive in a soft rotation of mint green, white, gray, and cream, wrapping the toe, the mudguard, the eyestays, and the heel. The lateral heel swaps the usual 992 script for a direct USA hit, and the tongue carries an American flag graphic reworked so the model number stands in for the stars, a small detail that turns a stock trim piece into something worth a second look.

Underfoot, the shoe keeps the formula that has made the reissued 992 line a steady seller since its return: ABZORB cushioning built into a two tone midsole, sitting on a gum rubber outsole that grounds the pastel upper in something more broken in. Retail is set at 200 dollars, in line with the rest of the Made in USA tier.

None of this reinvents the sil, and that appears to be the point. The 992 has always worked as a canvas for storytelling rather than a shoe that needs technical reinvention, and this colorway leans fully into that role.

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The release itself is deliberately small. Every Now and Then reopens its doors at 1843 West Chicago Avenue on July 11, with the mint 992 available in store starting at 10 in the morning, first come, first served. There is no wider online drop attached to this date, and no early word of restocks. For a shoe that has been teased for the better part of a year, the rollout is almost defiantly local, rewarding people willing to show up in person rather than refresh a cart at midnight.

That kind of exclusivity is not new for Robinson’s releases, but tying it directly to a store opening rather than a drop calendar gives the shoe a different kind of weight. It becomes part of the ribbon cutting, not just a companion product sold alongside it.

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Every Now and Then opened its original West Loop location in 2022 as both a retail shop and a creative studio, hosting Robinson’s own releases alongside product from friends and collaborators. That location closed in early 2025, and the brand spent the better part of a year without a permanent home while Robinson worked on a new space. The new build brings retail, a community area, and an in house cafe together with what is described as a premium New Balance account, a meaningful upgrade from a pop up footprint to something closer to a flagship.

Putting the store’s name on the shoe rather than his own is a subtle but pointed choice. It signals that Every Now and Then is meant to be understood as its own entity going forward, with its own retail relationship to New Balance rather than one that only exists as an extension of Robinson’s personal name recognition.

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The imagery tied to the reopening vibes consequential into the people who built the culture around the store rather than the shoe alone, name checking Chicago figures including Fashion Geek Al, Irene, and Vic Lloyd, formerly of Fat Tiger Workshop, alongside Corey Gilkey of Leaders 1354, the longtime Chicago streetwear shop and community fixture. It reads less like a standard product campaign and more like a thank you note to a specific stretch of Chicago retail history, one built by independent shops rather than mall storefronts.

Chicago style, personal history, and the mint green New Balance 992 meet in a campaign rooted in place.

That community framing tracks with how Robinson has talked about his own path for years, crediting the shops and people around him rather than positioning himself as a singular figure. Folding those names into the imagery for a store reopening, rather than a personal signature release, keeps that thread consistent.

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Zoomed out, this release lands at an interesting moment for the 992 itself. The model returned to regular rotation after a multi year absence, and its comeback has been driven almost entirely by exactly this kind of collaborative, story driven release rather than mainline colorways. Robinson’s work with New Balance across the past several years, including recent projects built around Chicago archives and community partners, has been a large part of why the silhouette carries the weight it does again.

A mint, in store only 992 tied to a store’s reopening rather than a designer’s name might read as a smaller moment on paper. In practice, it is a fairly clear statement about where Robinson wants the attention pointed next, away from a single signature and toward the shop, the block, and the city that shaped it.

For the Japan market, official Made in USA 992 stock is typically carried through New Balance’s own domestic channels rather than through Every Now and Then directly, given the Chicago exclusive nature of this specific release; interested buyers should watch New Balance Japan’s own product page for any wider restock or general release confirmation.