Contrary to rumors about the impending release of an Ivy-League themed New Balance shoe collection, the company is not manufacturing Ivy League footwear, public relations coordinator Jenny Cavaioli said in an e-mail to the News.

The shoes, which are made by New Balance Japan, make nods to U.S. college culture but are not meant to represent specific institutions. Hence an end to bloggers’ confusion as to why the “Columbia” shoes weren’t the right shade of blue, why the “Princeton shoe” was beige and why Yale seemed to have been omitted from the group.

“The inspiration was drawn from the Northeast Academic culture but the shoes themselves do not have any marking, emblems or call-outs to the specific American Ivy league Schools,” Cavaioli said. “Very frequently bloggers will nickname a release they post about totally independent of any communication from us.”

The shoes are not the first Japanese take on Ivy fashion. In 1965, the book Take Ivy, a collection of photographs of daily life at Ivy League universities, became a bestseller in Japan and caused Japanese fashion lovers to mimic Ivy League student fashions.