ADIDAS’S STYLISH TURN
By aligning with cultural icons at least as much as athletes, Adidas has refound its footing.
An onyx stage catches fire and three performers, silhouetted in the blaze, begin to sing from behind the flames. You can hear Kanye West’s voice, but you can’t make out his face. The first glimpse of him, poking out of the fire, is a shoe.
But not just any shoe: specifically, a white Adidas Ultra Boost, which until this moment—the Billboard Music Awards in May 2015—has never been worn in public.
West begins his next song and leaps through the flames. He’s dressed all in black except for the two white Ultra Boosts, which hang in the air like exclamation points. “What happens next? Every single store that had [Ultra Boosts] cleared out within the hour,” says Yu-Ming Wu, founder of shoe-culture network
