Adidas – The future is nostalgic
The ever-changing world we live in keeps us future-oriented, but sometimes moving forward means looking to the past for inspiration.
With this in mind, it’s little wonder that clothing trends are nostalgic in nature.
Many people use fashion as an expression of individuality, as a means to continually reinvent oneself.
A style of dress can be a visual manifestation of where we stand, how we’ve been shaped by our personal histories, cultures, emotions, politics and backgrounds.
A focus on this visual manifestation has created a shift in consumer culture, which has seen many brands suffer as a result of the growing popularity of e-commerce and thrifting – both of which have aided the growth of streetwear culture.
Youth & the urban environment
Streetwear is defined as an expressive sub-culture of the fashion industry, often distinguished by a casual style of clothing worn especially by members of various urban youth subcultures.
Streetwear culture gained global prominence in the 1990s, with its influential origins derived from popular trends like acid house, Californian surf and skate culture, and Japanese street fashion. It encompassed elements of sportswear, hip hop, punk and rock.
Streetwear style
It commonly centres on casual, comfortable pieces of clothing, such as baggy jeans, oversized T-shirts and hoodies, baseball caps and bucket hats, and clunky sneakers with a focus on bright and colourful clothing choices.
The growing prominence of oversized clothing, commonly referred to as “dad swag,” is reminiscent of 90’s fashion trends.
Over the past few months, Adidas has maintained its stance as a global market leader in the fashion industry by incorporating the 90s theme into many of its clothing releases.
The new Arsenal Adidas kit
There was a lot of public interest when the popular North London Football Club, Arsenal, first announced that it would be collaborating with Adidas over the next 5 years, commencing from the start of the 2019/2020 football calendar. The deal is worth an estimated £300m (around R 5.4 billion)
This means that an annual £60m deal would place Arsenal third in the most lucrative kit deals in football, behind Barcelona’s contract with Nike and Manchester United’s contract with Adidas – worth £140m-a-year and £75m-a-year respectively.
The pair recently unveiled their new retro-inspired Adidas home and away kits. They have been described as a “modern and progressive interpretation of a classic kit synonymous with Arsenal.”
Adidas and 90s Anime
This highly-anticipated collaboration follows Adidas’s partnerships with the Anime brands that gained immense popularity in the 90s.
In 2018, Adidas announced its extensive footwear collaboration with iconic Anime series Dragon Ball Z, and then later with Pokémon.
The Adidas Dragon Ball Z collection features some of the fiercest battles between characters in the long-running and beloved anime’s history.
From Cell and Goku, to Vegeta and Buu, DBZ’s heroes and villains have been brought to life in footwear form.
Adidas collaborated with the Japanese cartoon and videogame franchise, Pokémon, to create the new look footwear that features popular characters such as Pikachu and Squirtle.
The nostalgic retro themed fashion culture also includes an exclusive take on Adidas’s retro Campus 80s sneaker, Stan Smiths and Adidas Gazelles, to mention a few names.
The Three Stripes design is definitely a brand that will continue to innovate and reinvent itself in the future, but with so many of the latest releases being retro-inspired, we know that for now, the future is most definitely nostalgic.
