{"id":4651,"date":"2015-09-27T20:10:48","date_gmt":"2015-09-27T20:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.partyinc.com\/?p=4651"},"modified":"2015-09-27T20:26:24","modified_gmt":"2015-09-27T20:26:24","slug":"how-adidas-turned-sneakers-into-a-lifestyle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.partyinc.com\/how-adidas-turned-sneakers-into-a-lifestyle\/","title":{"rendered":"How adidas Turned Sneakers Into a Lifestyle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe\u2019re gonna tell you about a few felony cases\/It started with the brothers with the fat shoelaces.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s 1985, and Gerald Deas A.K.A. \u201cDr. Deas,\u201d a medical doctor, poet, playwright, and musician wrote a poem entitled \u201cFelon Sneakers\u201d warning against the perilous dangers of young men getting too enamored with sneaker culture. \u201cIf an unlucky brother winds up in jail,\u201d warns Deas, \u201chis felon sneakers can’t get him bail.\u201d Rather than serving as the cautionary tale that cajoled young men across America into loafers, the poem sparked a passionate response from one of the most explosive rap groups of the late\u00a0\u201980s. The following year Run-D.M.C\u2019s stone-cold classic, \u201cMy Adidas\u201d\u2014would go on to turn the German sportswear brand into an intrinsic part of hip-hop culture. And so, an adidas flag was planted in the rap world.<\/p>\n

\"Run-DMC_adidas_nuvjh0\"<\/a>
Imgae via Wikimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was all a long way from adidas\u2019 origins\u2014the running shoe that first bore the name in 1949 (always lowercase) and the\u00a0dreistreifen<\/em>, a simple aesthetic touch of three parallel lines that would prove to be a masterstroke. Way before people were rocking gold rope and shell-toes with no laces, the product of German visionary Adolf \u201cAdi\u201d Dassler\u2014he who hacked off and smashed together his name to create the brand we all know and love today\u2014had a reputation for class, craft, and sporting excellence. Athletes everywhere knew where they stood once they got their hands on a pair of adidas kicks.<\/p>\n

The Superstar itself started off as a low-profile basketball shoe in 1969 and was soon brought to national attention by legendary NBA center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bringing comfort and stability to basketball players who\u2019d been use to the unforgiving structures and no-give soles of previous shoes was a huge step in the right direction. Within a few months three quarters of the NBA were in the shoes, and over the coming years the sneaker would leave the hardwood and hit the sidewalk, eventually gaining the attention of Joseph Simmons, Darryl McDaniels, and Jason William Mizell. Today we know the members of Hollis, Queens\u2019 favorite rap group as Rev Run, D.M.C. and the late Jam Master Jay. Deciding to dress for the stage the same way they dressed for the streets, Run-D.M.C.\u2019s adoption of the shoe and subsequent counter-punch against Deas\u2019 anti-sneaker ode earned them a sponsorship deal from adidas to the tune of a cool $1 million.<\/p>\n

\"adidas<\/a>
Image via fredo on Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This was all the impetus needed to push adidas\u2014heritage, stripes, and that beautiful threefold logo\u2014straight into the face of the mainstream after it had been bubbling under the surface for years. 1984\u2019s\u00a0Beverly Hills Cop\u00a0<\/em>had brought it close. Eddie Murphy\u2014the biggest movie star in the world, the coolest man on the planet\u2014did a lot to endear the brand to millions. He repped off-white adidas Country sneakers as Axel Foley in the film. The Country is a beauty: a rounded toe, wide instep, premium-leather and suede inserts that gain character and life with every scratch and scrape. It was a European staple, born from a love for games of pick-up soccer and knock-around metropolitan living brought to American eyes, and it stuck.<\/p>\n

After Murphy and the Run boys made their mark, adidas kept moving like a shark with three-striped gills. In the late \u201980s, the Beastie Boys blew up speakers the world over with their snarky skater shtick and era-defining rap-rock. Wherever they went, Mike D came outfitted in a pair of adidas Campus.<\/p>\n

In 1991 a not-so-young Ice-T chased a very young Chris Rock across the streets of New York in the now-classic thriller\u00a0New Jack City<\/em>. Both wore adidas Phantom high-tops, proving the brand could kick it with the modern basketball crowd like the best of \u2018em. The difference was that Nikes and Jordans were for show, but adidas was for tell. It wasn\u2019t just a trainer, but a lifestyle. And nothing defined adidas lifestyle quite like Britain in the \u201990s.<\/p>\n

Widely popular rock band Oasis simply\u00a0was<\/em>\u00a0adidas. Whatever you think of them now, it\u2019s hard to deny the impact they had. Straight up, you know you sing your heart out to \u201cWonderwall,\u201d when that joint comes on the radio and you\u2019re in the car dolo. In their heyday, before the questionable haircuts and infighting that led to their demise, the brothers had the adidas game on lock. And they were the shining lights of England\u2019s North West\u2014the band\u2019s stronghold. If adidas\u2019 head was at their headquarters in Bavaria, Germany, its heart was in Liverpool and Manchester, England and will probably stay that way forever. And if there\u2019s a better marker of Oasis than Noel Gallagher on stage with his cherry-red Les Paul in adidas Gazelle OGs or Liam Gallagher in a baby-blue bucket hat and pair of black Copa Mundials, we have yet to see it. The band and the brand will forever be intertwined.<\/p>\n

Boasting lightweight comfort and easy maneuverability, legendary athletes like Franz Beckenbauer made adidas hard-ground soccer shoes into instant icons of class and control. Favored to this day by soccer players and fans, silhouettes like the Gazelle, the Special, the Copa Mundial, and\u2014yes\u2014the Beckenbauer Allround all pay homage to the Samba and the original designs that made adidas the go-to soccer brand for the past 60 years.<\/p>\n

In the 15 years since, adidas retained a stranglehold on music\u2014with notable collaborations from Snoop Dogg, Ciara, and a whole bunch more\u2014but as soon as 2013 hit, they jammed their foot on the gas. A$AP Rocky\u2019s piggyback on the winged Jeremy Scott x adidas collab proved that the brand had its finger on the luxe pulse, while Pharrell Williams took one of their most faithful silhouettes into the stratosphere.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Stan Smith\u00a0is far and away adidas\u2019 best selling shoe. Originally named the adidas Robert Haillet after the French tennis player, you guessed it, Robert Haillet. When he retired from tennis adidas looked for the next superstar to represent the shoe. Donald Dell, an American tennis manager at the time suggested Stan Smith and the rest is history. Interestingly enough the green foam padding came about in order to protect athletes Achilles tendons. After slipping out of view for a few years, the classic white-and-green colorway came back with a vengeance in the last few years before Pharrell introduced more unique Pantone colorways than any one man could ever wear. His 2015 collab went bananas, bringing an underrated and under-appreciated tennis shoe that\u2019s barely changed since the \u201960s to every sidewalk and street in America. That\u2019s major.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a>
Image via adidas News Stream<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And then there\u2019s Kanye West. Where even to begin with the only rockstar left on this planet? After a heavy breakup with Nike, Kanye teamed up with Germany\u2019s finest. If people doubted his design credibility, his adidas collection did away with any questions.<\/p>\n

The pinnacle of the partnership happened with the killer outing of the beige Yeezy Boosts at August\u2019s VMA Awards\u2014a shoe so beautiful it has hypebeasts from Merseyside, England to Hong Kong putting their cars on sale. The white-on-white YBs he wore at Houston Rockets\u2019 guard James Harden\u2019s birthday party officially made his work standout, while also staying perfectly Kanye. What more could you want? The 350s for the fashion-dads and the YBs for the kids\u2014Kanye West has cemented his place in the pantheon of adidas history, already.<\/p>\n

VIA – Complex<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe\u2019re gonna tell you about a few felony cases\/It started with the brothers with the fat shoelaces.\u201d It\u2019s 1985, and Gerald Deas A.K.A. \u201cDr. Deas,\u201d a medical doctor, poet, playwright, and musician wrote a poem entitled \u201cFelon Sneakers\u201d warning against the perilous dangers of young men getting too enamored with sneaker culture. \u201cIf an unlucky<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,27],"tags":[42,44,43],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partyinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4651"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partyinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partyinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partyinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partyinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4651"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.partyinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4658,"href":"https:\/\/www.partyinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4651\/revisions\/4658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partyinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partyinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partyinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partyinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}