End of the summer of 2015 a major fashion resurgence hit the feet of the trendiest fashion consumers: Adidas sneakers. The classic leather shoe with black stripes has been a staple of Adidas manufacturing for decades, but with its resurgence came new versions of this iconic shoe. One of the trendiest versions came in the form of the white with green accents. This green goddess graced the feet of celebs like Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid, making it the "it" shoes for everyone to wear.
However trendy this shoe became, few realized the history of this shoe. On the tongue of the sneaker is a small portrait of a mustached gentleman with a killer side swoop of hair and his name, Stan Smith, beneath it. This man to most is just a face on shoe, but in actuality, he is the original hipster. Stan Smith was a famous tennis player during the 1970s and 1980s. He wasn't just your ordinary famous tennis player, though, he was actually the number one tennis player in the world in 1971. He also was part of one of the greatest doubles team in tennis history, with Bob Lutz as the other half.
In 1963, Adidas created the first ever leather tennis shoe, called the Robert Halliet, after the famous French tennis player. In 1971, when Smith was named the world's number one player, Adidas renamed the shoe the Stan Smith. From then on this design became a primary design in the Adidas brand, one that has since been the basis for eight different versions, amassing 65 million dollars in total revenue in 2008.
This undeniably Adidas shoe made history when in 1988 it was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records when 22 million pairs of shoes had been sold. Now, with the 2014 relaunch, even though most fashion bloggers and celebs didn't pick up on this icon until 2015, Adidas turned this classic style into something customizable. There are different color options for the accents on the shoe and you can emboss a name on the insole of the shoe.
As with most fashion trends, they are never actually new. Fashion is a constant cycle of bringing past styles back with slight changes and variations. If you want to be on the cutting edge look to the past, but don't forget sometimes something's past is not as it seems.
