Key Points
- Releases July 30, 2026 on jjjjound.com; wider New Balance release to follow.
- Neither JJJJound nor New Balance has announced a retail price.
- No-sew upper replaces the standard 740's open mesh and stitched overlays.
- First "Mushroom" on a model outside the Made in USA and Made in UK lines.
JJJJound will release its New Balance 740N on July 30, 2026 through its own site, with a wider New Balance release expected later in the Fall/Winter 2026 season. The colorway is "Mushroom" — the beige, taupe and off-white palette Justin R. Saunders' Montreal studio has run across the 990v3, 992, 991, 993 and 990v4 since 2018. What is new is the shoe underneath it.
What is actually dropping, and what it costs
The drop is July 30 at jjjjound.com, JJJJound's own storefront, which is how the studio has staged every recent New Balance launch. No retail price has been announced. Not by JJJJound, not by New Balance, and not in any of the outlets that have covered the preview — Sole Retriever and Sneaker Bar Detroit both list it as TBA. Anyone quoting you a number today is guessing.
What can be bracketed is the range. General-release 740s have retailed between $100 and $115, per Highsnobiety and House of Heat, and CNCPTS' 740 "Brut" landed at $120 in January 2025. JJJJound's own recent New Balance work has sat far above that: the 1890 pack released at $200 in June, and the 990v4 "Mushroom" preorder ran $220, per Modern Notoriety. The 740N is a cheaper base shoe than either. Where JJJJound lands between $120 and $200 is the open question.
Why the 740N and not another 990
The 740 is not a grail. It was a mid-range daily running shoe that sat dormant in New Balance's archive, as Highsnobiety documented, before the brand revived it as a cost-conscious addition to its modern lifestyle lineup, per Sneaker News. It sits in the accessible tier, not the heritage one.
The "N" is the detail that matters. It is New Balance's no-sew designation: a tighter mesh base with fused synthetic overlays in place of the open mesh and stitched synthetic-leather overlays on the standard 740, which Gear Patrol laid out in its breakdown of the build. Fewer seams, fewer panel breaks, a flatter surface. That is a shoe already engineered toward the thing JJJJound spends every collaboration doing by hand — removing lines from the upper. The studio did not have to strip this silhouette down. It picked one that arrived stripped.
ABZORB cushioning stays, and JJJJound left the red heel-unit callout alone rather than tonally burying it. Navy hits the eyelets and the tongue, red returns on the tongue and the laces, and the lateral "N" is black against the taupe mesh. The JJJJound wordmark sits on the lateral heel in a tone barely separated from the panel behind it.
"Mushroom" is a color the studio keeps returning to
"Mushroom" is JJJJound's house neutral, not a one-off. It debuted on the 990v3 in 2018 — the studio's first New Balance collaboration — and has since run through the 992, the Made in UK 991, the 993, and the Made in USA 990v4, which opened for preorder in December 2025 at $220, per Modern Notoriety. Sneaker News notes the 740N is the first time the palette has landed on a model outside New Balance's Made in USA and Made in UK lines.
Reusing one color across six models in eight years is a branding decision most collaborators cannot afford, because most collaborators are selling novelty and novelty expires. JJJJound sells consistency: the color is the signature, the shoe is the variable. Moving it down from $220 Made in USA product to a mass-market runner tests whether the signature carries without the manufacturing prestige propping it up.
Why JJJJound collaborations price above the base shoe
Saunders launched JJJJound in 2006 as a digital mood board studying recurring patterns in design, and turned it into a Montreal studio that now works with New Balance, A.P.C., Reebok and Vans. The commercial thesis has not changed since the blog: subtract. No loud co-branding, no story-heavy colorway, no gimmick.
The premium comes from two things stacked. First, distribution: JJJJound drops on its own site first, in limited quantity, before any wider New Balance release, so the initial supply is small by construction. The 990v4 "Mushroom" went further — a reservation window that opened December 12, 2025, charged immediately and shipped in Fall 2026, per Modern Notoriety. Buyers paid nine months early. Second, consistency: eight years of the same restraint, priced by buyers as a credential. We flagged the same mechanism when JJJJound revealed the New Balance 1890 — a shoe designed to look like almost nothing, which New Balance followed with a wider release three weeks after the JJJJound drop.
The 740N is the cheapest canvas the studio has used for the Mushroom palette. If a fused, no-sew mass-market runner moves the same way the Made in USA pairs do, the credential is doing the work — not the factory. New Balance has been running the same experiment from the other direction all year, most recently with the 1954R at $190.
Others covering this
Hypebeast — "JJJJound and New Balance Set to Launch a Minimalist 740 "Taupe" for FW26"
"The Montréal-based design studio reimagines the Y2K-era fitness runner for modern lifestyle wear."
Sole Retriever — "JJJJound is Taking its New Balance Collab onto the 740N in Subtle Earth Tones"
"JJJJound's latest New Balance collab moves onto the 740N in taupe, off-white, and tan. Check here for images and release info."
House of Heat — "JJJJound Confirms New Balance 740 Collab for Fall/Winter 2026"
"Montreal's JJJJound is releasing a New Balance 740 collaboration for Fall/Winter 2026. The pair first features a "Mushroom" makeover."
Source: JJJJound, Sneaker Bar Detroit, Sole Retriever
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