the brand with the three stripes
for the shoe obsessors, streetwear geeks, and rapper wannabes. for the next 65 years of adidas to come.
RUN D.M.C. refused to conform to pop standards by deciding that they would dress on stage the way they dressed on the streets.
65 years ago adi dassler invented a shoe that changed the runners game forever. But in 1986, RUN D.M.C. invented a song that changed adidas’ game forever. In may 1986 “my adidas” hit the airwaves. It was the first single from Run D.M.C.’s big crossover album, “Raising Hell”. The song spread across the country and not only created a new era in sneaker culture, but bonded adidas to the streets for life. Rap turned into a new way of life, and adidas was there from the get-go. Soon enough those three stripes were not just on the athletes, but the street artists too. Beatboxers,
breakdancers, skateboarders and the kids next door on their way to school. Adidas found itself in the center of street culture. It’s enough to say that throughout our 65 years we’ve seen it all. Jesse Owen’s win the gold at the Berlin Olympics in 1936, the first athlete to win his fourth olympic gold metal. Stan Smith, the face of Wimbledon circa 1972 as well as the face of our shell toe shoe prior to Run DMC. And the count-
less everyday heros on and off the court, field, and stage. 65 years of adidas means 65 years all in. Impossible has meant nothing in the adidas family, and that family has brought to the team quality crafted sports wear and street wear. Adi Dassler valued his brand on innovation. The man nearly singlehandedly redefined the sporting goods industry and lifted the benchmark by a mile. Adi Dassler’s secret to success had an additional personal
ingredient: he met with athletes listened carefully to what they said and constantly observed what can be improved or even invented to support their needs. The best of the best trusted adidas and its founder from the beginning. And that would not change throughout the decades to come. He left behind a flourishing company that we can proudly say has kept those same values true. We do not know the future in sportswear, streetwear,
or possibly something new. But that will not stop us from shaping it. We will keep pushing the envelope with continuous innovations. Just how Adi wanted it. 65 years later we present to you this publication, a collection of how Run DMC shaped a new face of adidas. adidas orignials will always look back to the start of rap culture and that forever famous shell-toed shoe.
table of contents
018. 08.
shift in rap culture RUN D.M.C. forever changed the voice of rap music with the sound of their hit song “my adidas”
Every great story has a beginning. This one started in a small town Bavaria, Germany.
026. shift in fashion culture The explosion of the adidas “shell-toed” shoe brought on a whole new sneaker culture, and at the center of it, RUN D.M.C.
052. Let’s go back to what was happening in 1986.
032. 65 years of adidas We have scored big and also, sometimes, struggled to reach our goals. We have done our best for the best. We have improved and grown. Looking ahead to the future, we always remember where we came from.
046. an exclusive interview with Darryl McDaniels of Run D.M.C. “you could be black, you could be white, it didn’t matter who you were to be hip-hop.”
058. index and contributions
every great story has a beginning
008 / 65 years of adidas / where we began
This one started in a small town in Bavaria, Germany. After first steps in his mother’s wash kitchen, Adi Dassler registered the “Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik” in 1924 and embarked on his mission to provide athletes with the best possible equipment.
On August 18, 1949 Adi Dassler registered the “Adi Dassler adidas Sportschuhfabrik” and set to work with 47 employees in the small town of Herzogenaurach. On the same day, he registered a shoe that included the registration of the soon-tobe-famous adidas 3-Stripes.
we started in a and conquered
washroom the world.
1954 Adi Dassler
1954 Fifa World Cup Final, Germany v. Hungary
1972 Wimbledon Champion, Stan Smith
1936 Berlin Olympics Gold Metalist, Jesse Owens
1986 Harlem, NY RUN DMC releases “my adidas”
018 / 65 years of adidas / the rap culture shift
F
ew images capture the 1980s quite as representatively as that of Run-D.M.C. crouching in front of the Eiffel Tower. Group members Joseph “Rev Run” Simmons, Darryl “D.M.C.” McDaniels and Jason “Jam Master Jay” Mizell are dressed in unison. Each wears a three-striped Adidas tracksuit emblazoned with its three-leafed motif. Gold ‘dookie rope’ chains swing from their necks and black fedoras crown their heads. On their feet are unlaced white Adidas
shell toe ‘Superstars’ with the tongues pushed up, allegedly in impersonation of the ‘prison style’ worn by inmates. The photo, taken for the band’s 1987 Together Forever tour, encapsulates the paradigm shift in rap and fashion culture brought about by the band’s now iconic hit song “My Adidas”, released the year before. “It was a song that was about our sneakers, but it was bigger than just talking about how many pairs of sneakers we had,” DMC told MTV News. “It came from the
place of people would look at the bboys, the b-girls and go, ‘Oh, those are the people that cause all the problems in here.’ And, ‘Those young people are nothing but troublemakers and those young people don’t know nothing.’ So they was judging the book by its cover, without seeing what was inside of it.” This merge of art and sports not only set the everlasting street fashion trend off but also marked the birth of nonathletic promotions in the sporting goods industry.
had the Adidas [track] suits from head to toe,” McDaniels continued. Fittingly As the next two albums dropped, in 1985 and 1986, the trefoiled Run D.M.C. came to represent black, urban youth across America. What had begun as an indicator had become a flag. Back in 1986, Run-DMC said seeing all their fans rock Adidas sneakers and gear on the strength of their co-sign was actually a bit disconcerting. “It was scary,” DMC said. “We was [sic] going through Detroit, through Boston, through Chicago, through LA, through Virginia; every city we went to on the Raising Hell Tour, we would look out the back of the tour bus and everybody
at this stage, Adidas itself entered the mix, creating a trifecta that would alter the music and fashion industries forever, revolutionising the relationship between performer and consumer in the process. Run-DMC’s lyrical certification of “shelltoe” Adidas led to the first-ever endorsement deal between a music act and an athletic company. The limited-edition “My Adidas” Superstar 80s model is the same shoe Run, DMC and Jam Master Jay wore back in the day with special details like the JMJ
logo on the heel, “1986 stitched on the side and a gold lace lock designed to look like a dookie-rope gold chain. Only 1,986 of the shoes will be made for sale to the public. However, the trio were aware of the responsibility their tastemaking influence carried. “Me, Run and Jay, we sat back and said, ‘We gotta watch what we do and we gotta watch what we say,’ ” DMC said. “Because the music, the image, the concepts was so powerful, if they’re going to wear Adidas because we say it’s cool, that means they would drink, abuse, fight because of this. We got nervous. I always remember Jay said,
‘Yo, this hip-hop stuff is really powerful, man. We gotta watch what we say and what we present to the world.’ ”
When the shoe was introduced, it was the first low-top basketball shoe to feature an all-leather upper and the now famous rubber shelltoe.
G
rowing up during the 1970s on Hollis Avenue, Run-D.M.C. witnessed a period of distinct change in New York. Its long-standing social norms and hierarchies faded in relevance, while the cultural and societal codes of the future were yet to be established. The simplicity and consistency of the band’s selfidentifying, quasi-tribal style of dress reflected this state of flux in New York and American society. The band’s neighbourhood, culture, race and style weren’t placed behind the standard music industry veneer; they looked like who they were and, crucially, they looked like their fans. Knowingly or not, “three brothers, wearing three stripes,” created a stylistic movement that would come to galvanise the confidence of a newly emerging cultural demographic.
Decades before Rick Ross could even dream of getting dropped by Reebok, Run-D.M.C. broke boundaries—and made serious bank—with a show at Madison Square Garden in 1986. The trio’s road manager, Lyor Cohen, in one of his earliest, smartest power moves, invited Adidas exec (and former soccer star) Angelo Anastasio to see Run-D.M.C. performing at Madison Square Garden. Angelo Anastasio, a senior Adidas employee, was attending a 1986 Madison Square Garden performance of the Raising Hell tour when he was struck by the sight of tens of thousands of fans lifting their Adidas sneakers into the air, answering the call of those on stage. Inspired, Anastasio reportedly ran back to the Adidas New York headquarters and
within days, Run-D.M.C. became the first hip hop group to receive a million-dollar endorsement deal. Success was immediate; a limited edition shell toe ‘Superstar’ sneaker was released, soon followed by the now immediately recallable crossbranded clothing range, which is still in production under the Adidas Originals label. Big budget advertisements depicting the band in the brand were soon everywhere, and sales skyrocketed. By the time of the Together Forever tour, the partnership pervaded every press call, every image and every association the band made. Its rampant success paved the way for the kind of endorsement deals that saturate the music industry today and forged Adi-
das’ long-running association with hip hop, which has seen the sportswear giant sign deals with Kanye West, Missy Elliott, Snoop Dogg, Ciara and Pharrell, amongst many, many more. However, the fashion legacy of Run D.M.C. and their shell-toed Adidas means so much more than the emergence of a new revenue driver for performers and brands alike. Hip hop fashion, streetwear, the cachet of sportswear brands and the increasingly inextricable relationship between music and fashion have all, in some way or another, been influenced and affected by Run D.M.C.
Nicknamed the “shelltoe”, “shell shoes”, and “shell tops” for their rubber shell toe piece, their iconic design is known as one of the major influences in the sneaker culture.
032 / 65 years of adidas / through the years
this is where we came from, this is where we’ve been, and this is where we’re going.
A MIRACLE IN BERLIN Who would have thought that screw-instuds on lightweight football boots would help write history? When the German national football team faced the unbeatable Hungarians in the 1954 World Cup final, they won so much more than just a trophy. Their unbelievable victory would be heard around the world for decades to come. And it made adidas and its founder a household name on football pitches everywhere.
1954
FINE FEATHERS MAKE FINE BIRDS What’s in a name? Everything, when you name it after a “Kaiser”.
1967
When the Franz Beckenbauer tracksuit model celebrated its debut, it became the first piece of apparel for adidas and opened a whole new business to a company that, so far, was famous for shoes.
1970
A COMPUTER FOR YOUR FEET It sounds quite common today, but back in the ‘80s, a computer did not belong, much less fit, in your shoe. Didn’t stop adidas from putting it in there. An innovation ahead of its time, the Micropacer featured a system – known today as miCoach – providing performance statistics to athletes.
1984
1986
THE MERGE OF ARTS AND SPORTS When US-based hip hop group Run DMC released “my adidas” it was about setting the record straight about hard working people in troubled neighbourhoods and about pure enthusiasm about their sneakers. adidas itself only found out about this love story when the band held up the 3-Stripes shoes during a concert in front of 40.000 fans – one of these concertgoers was an adidas employee. The song became a hit and Run DMC and adidas unexpected and unique partners. This merge of art and sports not only set the everlasting street fashion trend off but also marked the birth of non-athletic promotions in the sporting goods industry.
2004
IMPOSSIBLE? JUST A BIG WORD. In one of its most memorable marketing campaigns. adidas lets its biggest athletes including David Beckham, Haile Gebrselassie and Muhammad and Laila Ali face their fears, defeats and challenges only to prove that, indeed, impossible is nothing. The slogan became the synonym for reaching one’s goals.
WHAT BELONGS TOGETHER COMES TOGETHER From the court to the catwalk and the stadium to the street. The adidas brand offers apparel and footwear for every sport, every fashion, every style, whether you are an athlete or fashionista. And in 2011, adidas brought together sport, street and style for the first time in one campaign to tell the world what it means to go all in, heart over head, inclusion over ego. “all in� (featured by Lionel Messi, David Beckham, Katy Perry and Derrick Rose) lived from the idea that, no matter your goals or challenges, you have to go all in for the ultimate success.
2011
2013 ENDLESS INNOVATION Running changed forever. Big words. History will tell us if it is true. adidas introduced the Energy Boost running shoe which featured a completely new cushioning material. Created in cooperation with the German chemical company BASF, the material combines former contradictory benefits of soft and responsive cushioning for a running experience unlike any other.
044 / 65 years of adidas / through the years
We sat down with Run D.M.C.’s own Darryl McDaniels to get the full scoop on what was going down in 1986 at the drop of “my adidas”. Rap came out of disco, disco was really popular with the DJ but disco was Saturday Night Fever and John Travolta, it was Rolls-Royces, furs, sex and drugs. So we took those disco records, Darryl, jazz had its Louis Armstrong, rhythm and blues had Ray Charles, rock ’n’ roll had Elvis — and rap had Run DMC. Is that a fair comparison? Yes, I guess so! A lot of people think that hip-hop and rap started with Run DMC, but there were rappers before us, but what we did, as we said on our record My adidas, was we took the beat from the street and we put it on TV. The perception was that you had to be black to be hip-hop. We made it so that you could live in Beverly Hills, you could live in the ghetto, you could be black, you could be white, it didn’t matter who you were to be hip-hop.
and whenever there was a break in the record we put social commentary in there. But as it evolved, we started rapping over jazz records, and James Brown records and funk records, and eventually we started rapping over the rock beat. Looking at the lyrics of your song “my adidas”, it’s a song that seems to say pretty well everything you want to say, what you do, your career, your philosophy, your aspirations… Yeah, actually it was Run’s brother, Russell Simmons, who was our manager at the time, he came to us one night where we used to hang out on the corner of Two Fifth Street, Hollis Avenue in Queens where we grew up. The whole Run DMC thing was taking off.
with our community. But Doctor Dees was wrong to say that. You can’t judge a book by its cover, because I would say only 30 per cent of that was true. The other 70 per cent was… I was a straight-A student in Catholic school.
And Russell came up to us and said, you gotta make a record about your sneakers, it should go, like, “My adidas, Standin’ on Two Fifth Street…” He kept singing it and we was saying, yeah, yeah, whatever, whatever. But the real evolution of the song came about from this doctor in our neighbourhood called Doctor Dees, he was affluent and inspirational to the kids, he was a good symbol of what hard work gets you. Every week he would put out a pamphlet dealing with social issues of our neighbourhood: drug dealers, teenage pregnancy, poverty, you know stuff like that. One week he wrote this thing called Felon Shoes. And he wrote that if you see the young people of this neighbourhood on the corner with adidas, adidas suits, or jeans, the Kangol hats and the Gazelle glasses, gold chains… if you see a fresh young guy on a corner, decked out in his adidas, that’s the problem
I didn’t sell drugs — I saved my allowance to go buy my adidas. I worked to be able to go buy my fresh adidas. So we said we could use our rap music because it wasn’t just about how good we were and how many sneakers we had, now we had a purpose to make a song about our shoes. We was touring the world at that time, we had Cadillacs and gold chains, so this was our chance to tell not just Doctor Dees, but the whole establishment that thought of us like that. That’s why we wrote, My adidas, standing on Two Fifth Street, funky fresh and yes cold on my feet, with no shoe-string in ’em, I did not win ’em, I bought ’em off the Ave… – bought them! We talked about, don’t you know these young men here, 18, 19, 20 years old, these adidas didn’t just stand on the corner, we was on the stage at Live Aid! And by us being there in our adidas, money was made and it fed the poor. If you listen to the words of My adidas, like you said, we put everything in there, our philosophy, because now the sneaker could represent something good, because the majority of the perception was, oh, you see those sneaker kids, they’re drug dealers. Now that could be true, but not all of us. So the adidas record idea actually gave us a purpose.
What came first: the song or your deal with adidas? No, we just made the record and we put the record out, and then the company approached us. We’d already been wearing them, and it seems there were people at adidas who were wondering, what’s going on with the shell toe sneaker? There were reports that sales were off the hook! Then there was this young guy in LA, Angelo Anastasio, who used to work for adidas, he was trying to figure out what was going on. So he flew to New York to go see Run DMC at Madison Square Garden, because he’d heard about it but he wasn’t sure. But something was happening! There were 40,000 people, and Angelo from adidas standing there, and, you know, Run DMC, the Raising Hell tour… so he’s standing there and we started our concert like we always did: Dee, take it off and hold it up! So I take off my shoe and I wave it a bit, and Angelo’s standing there and he sees me do that — and when he looks around, he sees 40,000 people all holding up a shoe! And I go, My adidas! And then we do the song. And that was it, he ran back to LA, yo, it’s true! I seen it with my own eyes! And he contacted the Dassler family and they’re saying the same thing, hold on, Angelo, slow down! First of all what the hell is rap
music and what is Run DMC? Oh, he says, you’ve got to see this! And the rest is history. It never crossed your mind to ask adidas for some kind of endorsement deal? Hell, no, we just wanted to rhyme about our sneakers. I mean, that was a whole thing, like, what else do we like? Not doing drugs, we like rock ‘n’ roll, we like leather, we like our hats, we like our gold chains, we like Cadillacs, we like our style, let’s rap about that, too. That was the whole motivation of it. Nobody ever accused us of selling out, because it was so real, what we was doing, it wasn’t like, yo, guys, I got an idea, let’s make a record about sneakers because then we’ll have the company come to us. No, it was like, we’ll make the record and what’s next? And building it into your act, for that particular number, shoes with no laces… I remember me and Run, we used to go to Jamaica Avenue where we grew up, before we began to rap, we would just go and look in the window of this sneaker shop and go, man, if I only had 40 dollars, I would get the red ones. And then Joe would go, if I had the money, I would get the green ones. So the whole thing was like this: we’re on the move so much, we don’t have time
to put the laces in. We wasn’t going to take the new sneakers and take the time to put the laces in. But the crazy thing about it now is, we never wore no laces in them, so people thought that was the way you had to wear them. I used to jump around the stage for two hours, I used to kick and they would never come off! So once we started wearing the adidas with no laces, everybody else thought, oh, that’s the way you gotta do it. And it just picked up with everybody, we would go to cities, Detroit, Chicago, Boston, LA, and we’re coming to town, everybody was adidas now, it was crazy! When you walked into the park to play ball, the first thing people would do would be to look at the sneakers to see what you had on your feet. Now, if you was an athlete, you didn’t break and you didn’t rap. But now you needed two pairs of sneakers: you had the pair you played in, and another pair so you could take off the pair you played in and put the new pair on! Do you think that your association with adidas, which is a very mainstream company, helped to give your kind of music a certain respectability? That’s a good question! I think the relationship with adidas legitimized our culture, because before it happened, people said it’s just a fad, rap music is just a fad, it’s negative, it’s not good, nobody will ever like it. So our relationship with adidas legitimized us, because it was a whole other world, that was very well respected, that was very household, families; so people said if rap is so bad, how come adidas is messing with these rappers right here? So it gave us some legitimacy, for sure. And it took us from the streets to mainstream white America. When I started rapping, it was something I did in my basement. And you know, they always say, what you believe, you become. I’d go into my basement and I would DJ and I’d make a cassette tape, I would take this music and I would play these break beats over and over and write rhymes down, in my black and white
notebook. And the notebooks piled up. One day Jay comes over, sees my pile of notebooks, looks through them and he’s like, you wrote all of this? And I’m like, yeah, and he looks at me and says, Darryl, when my brother Russell lets me make a record, I’m gonna put you in my group. But I didn’t want to rap. I was a schoolkid, I was a straight-A student, I kinda figured I’d get out of school and I’d go to college. I got to St John’s University, business management, and I was still writing my rhymes. Then the phone rings and it’s Run: Dee, you remember what I said back in eighth grade? Well, Russell’s gonna let me make a record, so grab your notebooks and come to the studio. This was the summer of 82, I grabbed my rhyme books, we went to the studio and we made the record and I got home at two in the morning. When I went to the studio I hadn’t told my mother and father, and I remember I got into trouble. Eventually Russell got the deal with Profile Records, I’m in my second semester of St John’s University, and I really hated business management. What could I do? Hanging around, waiting for success to happen… Second semester, I’m sitting in the university lunch-room, and over the radio station my first record, Sucker MC, comes on. The whole lunch-room jumps up: that’s the best rap we ever heard! Who are these guys? About a week later, the phone rings. It’s Russell: your record’s taking off, this is it, we gotta go on tour… so I go to my mother and I say, Mom, remember that night back in the summer I came home at two in the morning, well, I was making a record and the name of the group is Run DMC and the record’s pretty big and Russell says we gotta go on tour. And my mother and father say, hold on! Slow down! And they said, no, you’re not going on tour, get back upstairs and study your work. But I said, Mom, whatever money I make on tour, I’ll use to pay my tuition. And my mother and father said, OK, you can go! I took a leave of absence and I’ve been out ever since!
A high performance shoe and simple declaration of identity was carried off of the court and into everyday life.
052 / 65 years of adidas / flashback to 1986 The most advanced and labour intensive of all adidas’ technologies was the APS (AntiPronation and Shock absorption System) from around 1985. Requiring a novelty yellow key to work it, the shoe contained a polyurethane cassette in the sole that contained rods — by turning the key clockwise, the rods became closer, so you could determine the hardness of the midsole.
Wearable technology was just starting off in the mid 80’s and adidas was at the front of the line for innovation. The integration of electronic devices in sporting goods and the linking of equipment with information and communication technology will, for example, further affect the future of the sport. I expect ‘Digital Sports’ to open up absolutely new possibilities and new business models.
flashback to 1986 after the bell bottom jeans and disco vibes — adidas was making new waves in 1986.
The superstars, first made in 1969 were basketball sneakers used by nearly 75% of the NBA. Amung them, legendary basketball player Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Over the course of the next few years, it would advance from the court to the sidewalk and then consequently, further into the public’s consciousness. The Superstar received a lot of promotion from Run D.M.C. as they went out on tours across the US, which increased sales of the Superstar shoe.
The most advanced and labour intensive of all adidas’ technologies was the APS (AntiPronation and Shock absorption System) from around 1985. Requiring a novelty yellow key to work it, the shoe contained a polyurethane cassette in the sole that contained rods — by turning the key clockwise, the rods became closer, so you could determine the hardness of the midsole. Wearable technology was just starting off in the mid 80’s and adidas was at the front of the line for innovation.
054 / 65 years of adidas / sport meets stretet
where sport meets street The trefoil and the olympic idea In 1972, the world turned to Germany when the Olympic Games opened in Munich. Just in time for the event, adidas presented a new logo that was here to stay: the Trefoil. Then, symbolising performance. Today, the adidas Originals collection stands for lifestyle and street. Times may change, but trefoiled quality will always remain.
056 / 65 years of adidas / sport meets street
contributors and friends of adidas
Thomas Bartley Florian Wenningkamp Eugene Morozov Chowden photography Zoe Weber James Sharrock Tod Seelie D7606 Andrew Paynter
In the fashion loop Clothet Stem agency blog Oracle fox
Special thanks to our mothers, partners, friends, and Run D.M.C. for making these 65 years of adidas, 65 years of sport, and 65 years of style.
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