EDIT: This was written pre-Yeezy scandal which saw adidas taking huge hits to its yearly predicted profits. That being said, the adidas Originals line-up was still fire, so a lot of this piece still stands.
Back in March 2021 I found myself having to paint the shed. This unfortunately seems to be a designated role of mine whenever I’m at home, which because the lockdowns, had not been the case for almost a year. Knowing I’d be spending the next hour or so repeatedly moving a brush back and forth, I decided to queue a favourite podcast of mine, The Complex Sneaker Podcast. The episode featured Jerry Lorenzo and Jason Mayden, two big names when talking the world of design and contributions to footwear culture. That episode, more than any other had left a huge impact on me and my understanding of the footwear scene. With Jerry Lorenzo having signed on as President to the newly founded Fear of God Athletics under the adidas Umbrella, and Jason Mayden now Managing Business and Creative Strategy Globally for adidas Basketball, the duo took to the pod in order to discuss their future plans.
“A lot of my personal memories of the brand are super iconic. There are so many revolutionary individuals that were championing the brand that were aspirational to me as a kid. The Sambas were some of the first shoes that I had in high school that I would wear with my Umbro shorts and Daisy Dukes. What I love about the brand is this juxtaposition in association with these high-level Revolutionaries like Kanye West, Mike Tyson, Mohammed Ali and David Beckham. The product has always taken a backseat and I love how the product allows individuals to shine. It’s always felt like when I put on a pair of adidas it allows for my own swag to take president. It feels like I’m wearing the shoes, not like the shoes are wearing me.”
-Jerry Larenzo
“My relationship with adidas was on the heels of the people who stood in front of adversity and challenges and authentically themselves. Flow Joe, Mohammed Ali, Run DMC these people crossed over and were a spine breaker. As a kid who grew up in Hip Hop culture you started to see the nuances of people who did not fit in, they made it okay to be other. So for me adidas represents more of an idea more so than a product and a company, that idea is individualism. That’s what I like about this opportunity is that we get a chance to paint a new narrative, where the protagonist is the hero, not the artifact. Not the product itself but the person. I think that’s important for the person in this generation because when they’re seeking authenticity, it’s really hard to be authentic when you’re chasing a trend but it’s easy to be authentic when we’re standing in our truth. adidas has always stood in its truth and I get a chance to extend that legacy into the future.”
– Jason Mayden
What stuck with me was both of their takes on adidas as a brand. I had personally never seen the company in that light before, only having warmed to it myself the past year or so. To me adidas had seemed a little lost after their complete takeover back in 2015/16. They had experienced a huge peak but had since become lost, the fog near the top of the mountain obscuring their view of the path upwards.
Since moving and working to Manchester however, the love for the brand was a lot more noticeable. Working in the Bristol store prior to the move meant I started to question the brands history more and more. The Trimm Trab and Kegler Supers sat on the shelf of the wall with a vast history that I wasn’t yet aware of. In fact at the time, I’d never even seen the shoes before having scanned them in during delivery. I’d been drip fed the Nike narrative for so long that I was getting schooled when it came to adidas. Thank goodness it wasn’t all Tubular’s Doom’s and Deerupts! (praying hands emoji).
I myself had started to notice the Samba gain traction slowly but surely back in the end of 2020, the nostalgic seeds for the model were once again planted by Sean Wotherspoon post his Nike contract ending. He ended up doing a few limited Round Two Samba pairs in 2021 made of recycled material scraps and were made in the special German factory too. You can now seem him start to wear what I assume to be his next set of releases that he is trying to stir up traction for. Here’s hoping they do better than the previous Hot Wheels release that has just dropped.
Of course adidas were retro-ing the shoes every year or so, similar their release strategy with Shelltoes and Superstars, however I can only imagine them doing regular numbers throughout this period. Along with the Sambas, the Rivalry’s were having a small moment in 2018 before adidas went all out on their marketing for the Forums and seemed to have reached success with the model.
A lot of traction also came from strong collaborations with the world’s most streamed musician Bad Bunny and rumoured to be Louie Vuitton’s next designer, Grace Wales Bonner. The Bonner shoes were massive online in terms of Instagram presence with all your cool influencers getting off solid fits in them. This undoubtedly had a trickle-down affect with those who either didn’t know about which particular adidas shoes they were or couldn’t find them online, leading them to spend their well-earned cash on the next best thing. You even had Harry Styles on stage in Wembley performing in a pair of red Gazelles. I only noticed this myself as I thought he was wearing a pair of Napoli’s, a shoe that just so happen to be my one of my favourites, as opposed to being a massive fan of his. Aha, Watermelon Sugar yes my dudes.
No doubt Lorenzo and Mayden had an affect across the campus at adidas with their ideas of the brand, igniting them to readopt their old ethos. You now see adidas being the biggest brand or at least following closely behind New Balance because of their new strategy. They have realised the strength of the crowd and letting them adopt retro silhouettes into their own wardrobe. Those who have an online following and a taste of their own are integrating these simple terraced shoes and making it their own. Granted, this sometimes comes through via a questionably tasteful 10 second video in which the person in shot will lift up their foot behind them and catch it with their hand, but that’s the future baby… or at least what has the biggest choke hold over the footwear market for the moment.
Gone are the days where Air Max is everything. I myself was getting a bit tired of the rhetoric behind the importance of Classic and more obvious older silhouettes. The Shoe Dog in me wanted a doc on obscure Nike’s and the lesser known designers who made crafted them. Tinker is almost a rockstar at this point so why can’t the Swoosh try and do the same for some of the other designers. This behind the scenes stuff is something true fans of product are always here for.
At this point, even coveted Air Max and Jordan 1 models are sitting which would have been unheard of a few years ago. I believe the brand experienced the peak of this love during and post lockdowns once Netflix’s The Last Dance had had its huge cultural impact. The documentary had showed everyone watching why these shoes were so important. We no longer needed OG Sneaker Heads with extensive Jordan collections to tell us why, from their first-hand experiences and memories, because now we had them too! People who had never had a chance to experience watching Jordan play had now seen the magic and alien abilities of the man almost first-hand. The Documentary did so well to remove the barrier of time which is normally experienced through old footage quality that ends up creating a gap between the viewer and the art.
I was working in retail during this period and the want for anything Jordan was relentless. Every day at least 40% of customers would come in asking where the Jordan section was, it was madness. This carried on throughout the rest 2020 and into the first half of 2021 too. Thankfully or not, depending on how you see it, the hype train has indeed slowed down with 2022 being the year for adidas and new balance.
The generation born in the 90s and 2000s experienced enough of depending on the past for its footwear and put its own spin on it. Of course, models such as the Gazelle and Samba are in fact shoes created back in the 60s, yet given this gap of over half a century, the cultural and historical markers are less defined or at least more obscure as they are with 90s releases. Unless your Grandpa or Grandma were running track or game for that matter, they would have unlikely come across such shoes. It was more likely that you’d see a picture of your Mum and Dad rocking now-evangelised Nike models from old family snaps, than you would of Grandpa Joe hitting a topspin forehand in his Stand Smith’s. Even if your Grandparents were the coolest of cats, they probably wouldn’t have had the photos to prove it, funny how that works. So a lot of this nostalgia is unfortunatley limited by format.
With the dawn of new technological formats, comes a much-needed shift in ideas, and one which luckily went in tandem with that of adidas product. The 10 second Reel or video relies on the fast and now, the old picture format which I would argue is still relevant today, unfortunately looks to the past all too much. You might see a picture of someone wearing a classic Jordan (peep @no.idea.is.original for what I mean) but you don’t have a 10 vid of them getting sturdy in some Jordan Aqua 8’s from when they originally released.
The cultural power has now been handed, for the most part to your smaller creators, ones who don’t seem to detatched from our own reality. If Rachel or John are running about their second-hand clothing business in a pair of adidas, then why can’t Wendy or Peter getting the bus to work feel the same way when they lace up their pair of three stipes? The power is in the people. Like Jason said, “the protagonist is the hero, not the artefact.”
wear shoes, write poems 