How Adidas Got Its Game Back
Models stand on the runway at the Adidas Originals x Kanye West YEEZY fashion show during New York Fashion Week in New York.
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When Angelique Kerber won the U.S. Open in September to bring the women’s tennis title to Germany, she was decked out head-to-toe in gear by Adidas. NFL wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins kicked off the Houston Texans season wearing cleats designed by rapper Kanye West, part of Adidas’s strategy of mixing sports and hip-hop culture that’s resonating with kids. Even celebrities such as Katie Holmes and Kristen Stewart lately have been seen sporting Adidas’s back-to-basics Stan Smith tennis sneakers, which some fashionistas have taken to mixing with couture wear.
“If a giant hurricane comes tomorrow and wipes out Herzo, the one thing people are going to miss most are our products,” says Eric Liedtke, Adidas’s executive board member responsible for global brands, using company shorthand for Herzogenaurach, the Bavarian enclave where the company is based.