Retro Sambas Help Adidas Forge a Future Without Kanye
Demand for one of this year’s hottest sneakers is helping the sportswear company recover from its post-Yeezy slump
This year’s must-have sneaker is a shoe so old it was launched in the former West Germany while the U.S. was still enacting the Marshall Plan.
Ever since its invention as a soccer shoe in 1950 and subsequent evolution into a casual sneaker, the Adidas ADDYY -0.06%decrease; red down pointing triangle Samba has drifted in and out of fashion, without ever quite going away.
All of a sudden, the Samba and other classic models are everywhere, sported by everyone from celebrities and fashionistas to hard-core sneakerheads. Now, Adidas is racing to capitalize on the trend as it looks to fill an estimated roughly $2 billion-a-year void left by the collapse of its once lucrative Yeezy partnership with rapper Kanye West.
“We’ve been seeing this groundswell of excitement” for retro sneakers globally, said Torben Schumacher, general manager of Adidas Originals, a unit overseeing the company’s heritage fashion and sportswear. “We want to make sure it has a commercial impact.”
Adidas faces a challenge to crank up production fast enough to meet demand. At the start of the year, the company hadn’t anticipated boosting output of its retro models, which analysts estimate sold under one million pairs in 2022. Then the Samba, in particular, kept selling out in many markets faster than the company was able to restock the shoes.
The company reacted by ramping up output of its retro models, which is now increasing month on month and could reach a rate of 15 million pairs a year or more, Chief Executive Bjørn Gulden said on a recent analyst call. At those levels, if maintained, retro sneaker sales could help replace the lost Yeezy revenues.
“We have a bigger archive than anyone else [but] we have not exploited that,” Gulden said, acknowledging that rival Nike—though a couple of decades younger than Adidas—has historically done a better job of monetizing its back catalog. Nike’s ’77 Vintage Blazer basketball shoe is a recent hit, for example.
Adidas has launched its first global marketing campaign in years for what it calls its terrace shoes—low-rise sneakers with rubber soles—that include the Samba, Gazelle and Superstar styles.
Fashion writers have lined up this year to anoint the Samba as 2023’s hottest shoe, while celebrities such as model Bella Hadid and actor Austin Butler have been spotted wearing them. Even Rihanna—who has a sneaker collaboration with Adidas’ crosstown rival Puma—has been seen sporting a pair.
That has all been welcome publicity as Adidas attempts to recover from the Yeezy debacle, in which Adidas terminated its successful collaboration with West after he made antisemitic remarks. The company also got a boost from its latest “super shoe” helping Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa break the women’s marathon record in September.
One challenge Adidas faces as it ramps up production: Samba’s scarcity is partly what’s made it so desirable. The company must now increase availability without blowing its cool factor and finding itself stuck with excess inventory.
While the Samba’s renaissance has been largely spontaneous, Adidas has kept its profile bubbling through recent partnerships with Pharrell Williams’ Humanrace label and British designer Grace Wales Bonner. Meanwhile, luxury brand Gucci redesigned the Adidas Gazelle as part of a collaboration last spring.
The Gazelle started life in the 1960s as an indoor sports shoe. The Superstar made its debut as a basketball shoe in 1970, and achieved cult status following a 1986 collaboration with hip-hop group Run-DMC.
Most Samba models, which typically feature a distinctive T-shaped toe bumper made out of suede, cost between $90 and $150 in the U.S. Adidas keeps classic styles, notably the top-selling black-and-white “Samba OG,” in constant production, while refreshing the lineup every year with new color combinations.
The revival of retro styles has been an unforeseen positive for Adidas, helping the company perform better this year than executives had originally feared. Adidas shares are up about 30% so far this year, outperforming about a 14% drop in Nike’s stock.
The demise of the Yeezy collaboration with West, who now goes by Ye, tipped the company into crisis in late 2022.
Adidas had forecast a full-year loss of around $475 million for 2023 but now expects to lose closer to $105 million, it said in October. The continuing sale of leftover Yeezy inventory, which was endorsed by antiracism groups after Adidas pledged to donate some of the profits to charity, has helped boost its performance.
While the company has benefited from what it describes as extraordinary demand for its retro styles, it has cautioned that total volumes of its classic sneakers represent a small portion of its overall business, which also includes sports apparel, equipment and footwear.
Adidas is set to next update investors on its financial performance on Nov. 8.
Samba aficionados attribute the appeal of the sneakers to their versatility. “You can dress up, you can dress down,” said Luca Doernbach, who estimates that his collection of 14 pairs of Sambas is worth around $8,000.
The crown jewel is his rare dark green pair with gold stripes from 2005, said the Berlin-based teacher. A vibrant violet pair with an orange trim is another favorite, said Doernbach, who prefers different styles than the black-and-white “Samba OG.”
The Samba’s sudden popularity is annoying, but wouldn’t deter him from expanding his collection, said the 40-year-old, who wears Sambas roughly every other day. To set his collection apart from the mainstream, Doernbach said he seeks out rare models and distinctive colors, an approach he calls “treasure hunting.”
After a year or two of being back in vogue, “it’s inevitable that they’ll become too popular,” at which point the Samba will go back to being the preserve of true fans, he predicted.
“Everybody worships something,” Doernbach said. “With me it’s Sambas.”