adidas’ most important collab is...

Drumroll please 🥁 [Highsnobiety]( [Highsnobiety]( LOOKING BACK AT ADIDAS’ MOST IMPORTANT sneaker collab These days, the word “collaboration” means about as much as “influencer” does. It’s one of those marketing buzzwords that’s been so done to death that it’s almost devoid of meaning. But 15 years ago, adidas’ unprecedented 35th Anniversary collection — celebrating the Superstar — invented modern sneaker culture as we know it today. As the same sneaker looks to celebrate its 50th anniversary, the impact of those 35 special pairs still reverberates today. “The influence of that project is immeasurable. It set the stage for the future." (Gary Aspden, longtime adidas design guru) The long and convoluted history of adidas’ second most popular shoe started as the first-of-its-kind low-top basketball shoe; the OG Superstars were made in France and began as player exclusives for NBA superstars like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It then became apart of the hip-hop uniform as the first leather basketball shoe that found a more enriching life on the pavement than the hardwood. Its pedigree as hip-hop culture’s go-to shoe was cemented when Run-DMC released “My Adidas” in 1986, and the connection to hip-hop evolved from implied to official. [Highsnobiety]( From there, the adidas Superstar became an integral part of several different subcultures. But it was in Japan, where the Superstar’s European origins and high price tag had made the shoe a subculture in its own right, where it really took off. BAPE made the “Super Ape Star” and the rest of the world finally caught on. To understand the significance of BAPE’s 2003 collaboration, you have to imagine a world where sneaker culture was nowhere near as rabid as it is now. There was no resource for looking up the latest drops — if you knew, you just knew. Under the slogan “The Respect Is Mutual,” the Super Ape Star left nothing to chance. It embodied its ethos of reciprocal appreciation, a true meeting of worlds. [Highsnobiety]( adidas developed various lines of collaboration for the silhouette, whose popularity was spreading like wildfire. The “Music” series made particularly large waves, speaking to hip-hop’s future by including a crisp white pair with luxurious silver and gold stripes by Bad Boy Entertainment (a subtle nod to the white-on-white pairs Puff Daddy consistently made look rich), and a Roc-A-Fella Records pair with a black heel. This would later herald in the next great era of the Superstar, involving Pharrell teaming up with adicolor to release an astonishing 50 monotone versions, proving that this silhouette was becoming the go-to canvas for collaborators. [Highsnobiety]( Fast forward to today, where adidas is collaborating with the likes of Hender Scheme and Prada on Superstars with a much heftier price tag than ever before. But people are willing to purchase, and that’s due to the decades of work the Three Stripes put in building up the repertoire and street cred of the silhouette. [Highsnobiety]( When you think of what makes a collaboration truly great, it’s that level of respect between parties who put their minds together to create something much more than the sum of its parts. The Superstar 35th Anniversary collection established that ethos, and lit a torch being carried by the same sneaker today. [want to know more about the superstar's history?]( [Like on Facebook]( [Follow on Instagram]( [Add on Snapchat]( [Follow on Twitter]( [Subscribe on YouTube]( [Follow on Pinterest]( You are receiving this email because you opted in at our website: [{EMAIL}](. You can [unsubscribe from the list]( or [manage your subscription preferences](. Titel Media GmbH 2020 © Titel Media GmbH, Genthiner Str. 32-34, 10785 Berlin Germany