JJJJound Reopens Its 990v3 File With a Suede New Balance for Fall/Winter 2026

Four years after its last 990v3, the Montreal studio teased a tan suede pair on Monday, trading the model’s usual mesh base for something warmer and quieter.

The post went up on JJJJound‘s Instagram early Monday: a New Balance 990v3 Made in USA finished in tan, a black “N” on the quarter panel, and a caption pointing to Fall/Winter 2026. No price came with it, and no date or style code either. For a Montreal studio that has built much of its reputation on saying very little, that is close to standard procedure, and this time the announcement lands on the exact model where the pair started.

Signal. What happened: JJJJound previewed a new New Balance 990v3 Made in USA collide on Instagram on Sept. 28, 2026, its first new 990v3 colorway since 2022. Exact object: a JJJJound x New Balance 990v3 Made in USA with a tan suede upper, black “N” logos and a black midsole; early Japan-market list carry it as “Brown/Black,” but no official colorway name, style code or price has been published. When and where: Fall/Winter 2026, with no confirmed date or stockist list yet; recent JJJJound pairs have launched first on jjjjound.com ahead of New Balance’s wider rollout. Source: JJJJound’s own Instagram teaser, share by early Japan market rel list; New Balance has not issued an announcement of its own. Why it matters: the 990v3 is the shoe JJJJound and New Balance first made together in 2018, and this version reportedly replaces the model’s mesh base with suede, a bigger construction change than the studio usually signs off on. Earlier: recent New Balance coverage on DRIFT includes the 991 Essential and the 9060 “Light Arctic Grey/Pink Granite.”

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Hue is usually where JJJJound does its arguing. Across most of its New Balance work, the studio leaves a shoe’s construction alone and makes its case through a narrow, muted palette. The new 990v3 breaks that habit. Based on the teaser images as described in early coverage, the mesh that normally sits beneath the 990v3’s overlays has been replaced with tan suede, with more suede layered on top, so the upper reads as one continuous soft surface rather than the model’s usual mix of textures.

The tongue follows suit, wrapped in tan suede with brown New Balance lettering stitched in place of the standard treatment. The black “N” on each side and the black midsole supply the only real contrast, while a small metallic silver hit picks out the “990” on the lateral heel. Early listings confirm the ENCAP midsole carries over, as it did on every earlier JJJJound version of the model.

Descriptions of the exact shade are not settled. Most early write-ups call it tan or beige, one Japanese list calls it mushroom beige, and accounts split on either the upper is suede or nubuck. That mushroom ref carries some weight. On its own 990v4 preorder page, JJJJound credits its 2018 990v3 with debuting what it calls the mushroom colorway, a shade it later carried onto the 992 in 2020, a Made in UK 991 in 2023 and the 993 in early 2025. JJJJound has not used the word for the new pair.

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Justin R. Saunders launched JJJJound in 2006 as a digital mood board meant to study recur patterns in design, according to the studio’s own account, and stripped the text out of it around 2008, leaving only images. The blog eventually grew into a design studio in Montreal that now describe its work as making objects built for purpose and longevity, designing physical spaces and keeping the image archive going. New Balance became one of its most frequent partners. The studio’s own project archive lists New Balance as its only collaboration of 2018, and Hypebeast covered that first 990v3 when it launched through JJJJound’s web store.

The 990v3 arrived in 2012, the 990 line’s 30th anniversary year, and the history of the 99X series on Wikipedia credits New Balance Senior Designer Andrew Nyssen with leading that year’s design. JJJJound’s own 2022 project copy frames it as the first 990 of the 21st century and a clear break from the v1 and v2, with roomier overlays, more mesh and updated cushioning. Like every pair in the Made in USA line, it carries New Balance’s standard disclosure of at least 70% domestic value, along with a note that Made in USA accounts for only a limited share of the brand’s U.S. sales.

2022 was the model’s busiest year with JJJJound. An olive pair was teased in February, a brown and black version followed in May, and in November the studio released a 990v3 “Montréal” sold only in its home city. After that, the partnership spread across other models: the 2002R in GORE-TEX builds, the 993 in January 2025, which Complex reported dropped on jjjjound.com on Jan. 16 before reaching New Balance accounts the next day, the 990v4 in Mushroom, and this year’s 740N and 475 projects in JJJJound’s archive.

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Early Japan-market listings title the new pair “Brown/Black.” That is also, word for word, the official name JJJJound gave its May 2022 990v3 (style code M990JJ3), a darker shoe built from brown suede overlays on mesh underlays, with black laces, reflective “N” logos and an ENCAP midsole, per the studio’s own project page. That pair launched on jjjjound.com on May 12, 2022, then globally on newbalance.com on May 18, where Complex reported a $219.99 price against the $250 tag on JJJJound’s own store. In Japan it arrived on May 20 at ¥35,200 through New Balance’s own stores, with Fashion Press noting a herringbone-patterned mesh.

The new shoe is lighter in tone and, if early descriptions hold, drops that mesh for suede altogether, so the shared label looks more like a working description than a confirmed colorway name. How it will sell is also open. JJJJound’s most recent Made in USA project, the 990v4 Mushroom, ran as a made-to-order preorder, with orders estimated to ship during Fall 2026, according to the studio’s own preorder page. Whether the 990v3 follows that route or drops the conventional way has not been announced.