Anyone who grew up playing soccer (or football, as it's properly referred to in the rest of the world) probably associates those memories with crisp weather, postgame orange slices, and blisters from ill-fitting cleats.
Anyone who played indoor soccer — specifically futsal, which is played on hard gym flooring — will probably remember their parents pushing a very specific kind of shoe on them.
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Those shoes were the Adidas (ADDYY) -) Samba sneakers, first introduced in Europe in the early 1950s.
The Sambas were revolutionary for their time. Specifically crafted for football, they sported gum soles to provide athletes with extra traction during training on hard or icy surfaces. The original pairs were black with three white stripes down the side — now an iconic look that's part of the Adidas logo.
Sambas are still around; many subsequent spinoffs and iterations include new colors, extended tongues, and platform soles. They're especially popular in Europe, where football is the most popular sport.
Adidas remained popular in pockets of the U.S. throughout the 1970s and beyond, but a large elephant on the court began to take over stateside when Nike (NKE) -) began strategic partnerships with beloved athletes.
One of those athletes, of course, was the National Basketball Association stalwart Michael Jordan. Nike signed an initial $2.5 million deal with Jordan to produce shoes with his namesake, and the rest is history.
Or so we'd thought. The age-old fashion adage is that what's old inevitably becomes new again, and Adidas is certainly on the upswing.
Adidas's old iconic sneaker gets a refresh
On Friday, Adidas released a campaign entitled "We Gave the World an Original. You Gave Us a Thousand Back." The campaign celebrates the Adidas Originals, a line of casual athletic and streetwear, marking 50 years of Adidas as the tip of the spear in taste making and trend setting.
"The plan is to introduce the heritage and history of Adidas Originals to a new, younger group of consumers who are discovering these products maybe for the first time," Adidas Originals' senior vice president and global general manager, Torben Schumacher, said.
The campaign focuses on three iconic shoes, each with its own film about its origin stories and importance:
A reintroduction is hardly needed. Adidas Sambas, Gazelles, and Originals have been popping up everywhere from high-fashion corners of Paris to football pitches in Miami. Adidas are once again in red-hot demand, and for the company it couldn't have come at a better time.
Adidas quit Kanye West partnership
In October, the company divested its partnership with rapper Kanye West, whose line had accounted for nearly 10% of the company's annual revenue. The German brand was suddenly stuck with more than $1 billion of unsold inventory and a PR nightmare on its hands.
But in less than a year, Adidas has been hard at work reinventing itself. And the stock has responded, almost doubling since the end of October.
“We want to double down on all of the things that are U.S.-centric, particularly around sport,” Adidas's North America president, Rupert Campbell, told The Wall Street Journal in April.
And that's exactly what it's done. Adidas linked up its Samba sneakers with high-fashion house Gucci, Latino rapper Bad Bunny, and designer Ronnie Fieg — and has been blown away by the results.
"And I think that the way we have done collabs, you see it here together with Bad Bunny and you also see the Samba that we did with Ronnie Fieg, is causing a lot of energy," Chief Executive Bjørn Gulden said on the Q1-earnings call. "And as you can see outside the Kith store in Tokyo, people are lining up in hundreds to actually buy this product."
"The trend magazines and in the, what should I say, fashion areas, and then we will have another winner. Great job of Adidas with Gucci. I think the Samba boom that we see is coming out of this cooperation, and here, you see some examples of it," he said.
He added that the rapper and fashion icon Pharrell "will launch many, many fashionable colors together with us in the second half of the year."
Adidas is still recovering from its West/Yeezy meltdown, but the financials are looking up.
Sales (excluding Yeezy) were up 9% in Q1 — and judging by how difficult it is to get your hands on a pair of Gazelles right now, those numbers are probably going to bear out in the data as we enter the 2023 holiday season soon.
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