Although Adidas Originals was first conceived in 1992, it was not for a further five years that this 'sub-brand' would come to fruition. As part of a re-branding initiative, Adidas Originals became the fashion focussed area within the Adidas Corporation, with others being ‘Performance’ and ‘Y-3’. As the only sub-brand to use the ‘Trefoil’ logo, Adidas Original takes inspiration from the 1970’s and 80’s. Using classic Adidas clothing and footwear models, the sub-brand develops fabrics and innovative colourways to make products contemporary, whilst the ‘Samba’ or ‘Forrest Hills’ - the latter of which, was made famous by its use of NASA space technology – highlight this retro ethos.
Using a minimalist aesthetic, combined with toned-down colours, there are many obvious references to classic football kits of the 1970’s, thus, unsurprisingly archive footage of Franz Beckenbauer and Johan Cruyff featured in a 2009 advertising campaign. 1980’s inspiration takes the form of Hip-Hop street culture. At this time, when Adidas was a ‘uniform’ for much of the youth culture surrounding the musical genre, Adidas enjoyed a period of sustained growth without competition from the likes of Nike who had yet to tap into this market.
Contemporary movements include continuous collaboration with the avant-garde Jeremy Scott and the ‘Kazuki’ collection which has been evolving for the past five years. Designed by Kazuki Kuraishi, who has worked on design projects for Japanese brands such as Neighbourhood, the Kazuki collection aims to bring Japanese contemporary streetwear credentials to Adidas. Adidas Originals is a brand that tries to ‘capture’ moments in time, highlighting creative energies within youth cultures; crucially not trying to shape its customers, but rather, allowing the customer to shape it.