Anyone with a remote interest in street-wear knows the Superstar — a non-descript leather low-top staple made famous by Run-D.M.C. in the early ’80s — and the Stan Smith — a similar iteration without the Superstar “shell” toe, named for legendary tennis player Stan Smith — has made a massive comeback in recent years under the Adidas Originals Group. It’s the ubiquitous must own-shoe for everyone from Gisele Bundchen (she posed nude wearing nothing but a pair of white ankle socks and green striped Stan Smiths for Vogue Paris) to twentysomethings with a penchant for norm-core and urban athletic wear.
But what’s lesser known is that sales of the Superstar and Stan Smith styles grew 45 percent this past year, selling over 15 million pairs worldwide. As Business of Fashion reported, that means sales of the iconic sneaker contributed $1 to every $10 the company raked in.
That spike is, in part, thanks to the ingenious collaboration between fashion influencer Pharrell Williams and the brand, which debuted last March. Billboard spoke to Rachel Muscat, global category director, statement collaborations at Adidas, about “Supercolors”, Pharrell’s ultra-saturated iteration of the Superstar in 50 hand-picked PANTONE colors (all of which, Muscat says, sold out in about a weekend) on why the line was such a success, how involved the musical icon was in the process and what’s next for the partnership the consumers can’t get enough of.
Billboard: How did this partnership start?
Muscat: Pharrell is very similar to our brand. He’s very authentic in what he does and what he represents. January 2014 was our first meeting with him where we went through our archives, and he was really acknowledging some of the footwear from our past. He remembered how people had a huge connection to the Superstar from back in the day, which was great. So a few weeks later over lunch, we’re talking about ideas and he just says, “what about 50 colors of the Superstar?” And within the next six months we fleshed that out.
How involved was Pharrell in the collaboration process?
Whenever we partner with someone, we’re looking for originality and new ideas. And one of the best moments we’ve ever had with Pharrell was making the Supercolor. When he told us his idea, my first thought was “what does it mean to bring something like this to life?” So we gave him a PANTONE color book. And over the weekend, while he was on tour, he built a circle of color chips that would then come to life via our sampling process. Three months later, with a suitcase full of shoes, we went to meet him backstage while he was on tour at his show in Dusseldorf, Germany. That’s where the initial picture, which was our most tweeted image of the year, came from — Pharrell sitting in a circle surrounded by the Superstars, pulling together the shoes to recreate the PANTONE colors he chose.