From soccer cleats to fashion-favorite sneakers. Today on Blog don’t Lie we’re focusing on a shoe with a curious and controversial history, so from our point of view, Fantastic!
Alohas, the brand born in Hawaii, releases the TB.490 sneaker. We take a step back and go see where it all started. That is, in Germany.
Today, separating the term fashion from the name Adidas Samba seems impossible: they are the sneakers par excellence of the moment, a fad of Gucci, Wales Bonner and Kith as well as of the new icons of contemporary fashion, from Alexa Chung to Camille Rowe. Yet Adolf Dassler had not originally conceived them for this purpose. On the contrary, they were a mere sporting object, specifically for football.
Adidas was born as a company in 1924 when its founder, together with his brother, later founder of Puma, the aforementioned Adolf Dassler, son of a shoemaker and avid sports enthusiast, decided to set themselves the goal of creating the best shoes for athletes. Adidas was born in a small village in Bavaria, Herzogenaurach, and the name is simply the crasis of Dassler's nickname.
Adidas’ fame was a combination of luck, determination and successful marketing strategies. Like the choice to have the athlete Lina Radke wear a model during the 1928 Olympics, which she won and launched the Dassler brothers’ shoes into the eye of the storm. The Adidas Samba was born a few years later, in the 1940s, when Adolf Dassler wanted to create the perfect football boot. Over the years, the Samba underwent numerous modifications intrinsically linked to the changes and developments in the world of football: the fabric became lighter, the dimensions were reduced and the studs gave way to a smooth but heavy sole, excellent for traction.
Then came the Nineties, and the success of skaters, with the skate parks of Los Angeles as the backdrop to the infallible charm of this sport. The Samba found fertile ground in this field too, becoming very popular among the American community. And from the world of skateboarding to that of music, it was a short step: slim, essential, minimalist, versatile, the Adidas Samba began to appear on the feet of the most phenomenal rock stars, Bob Marley and Freddie Mercury first and foremost, it is impossible to forget the frontman of Queen in 1986 at Wembley Stadium in a yellow jacket, tank top and Adidas Samba. Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Moss shared the success of the Nineties: between an Adidas Samba, jeans and a cigarette.
However, for years, Adidas Samba remained relegated to a more casual and sporty universe, the fashion world watched them from afar, intimidated or perhaps disillusioned by the ability to reinvent them. 2020 arrived and Grace Wales Bonner presented the Fall Winter 2020/2021 collection in London. The models walked the catwalk showing off the new Adidas Samba x Wales Bonner collaboration. The immediate success pushed other Maisons to give their perspective: new colors, new fabrics, new loves were born.
Today they have become the passe-partout of the so-called "model off-duty look", that is, the style that combines elegant and minimal garments with more casual pieces. Godmother of the most copied outfits, Kaia Gerber, who wears Adidas Samba whenever she has the chance. Versatile and elegant enough, with a retro touch that never hurts, they earn the difficult update of going from sporty sneakers to city classics. There are those who remain faithful to their more traditional version - white leather with black stripes - and those who savor the new versions, in burgundy suede or mustard yellow. But the heart always remains the same: Adidas Samba and elegance.
But let's face it, for us, brand hunters, it would have been too easy to propose the Samba. So we opened the hunt.
Alohas caught our attention with the TB.490 which embodies all the spirit we described above.
The Tb.490 sneaker is crafted from sea pink suede traced with contrast red trims. Designed in a low-top silhouette sitting on rubber soles, it’s complete with classic features, including exposed stitching and the logo embossed across the tongue and sides.
You can try all our TB.490s in store or see and buy HERE.