adidas Celebrates its 75th Anniversary With An Exclusive Insight into the Archive

Take an exclusive insight into the adidas archive, the Aladdin’s cave of classic 3 stripes, trefoil toggery and iconic silhouettes from the last 75 years.

It would be hard to imagine a world without the 3 stripes. A German sportswear brand built out of a bitterly brotherly rivalry, one-upmanship and a desire create some of the greatest footwear the world had ever seen. Fast forward 75 years and “die marke mit den 3 streifen” is officially the hottest sneaker brand at the moment, although it never really went anywhere, with all time classics like the Samba and the Spezial spearheading the recent 3 stripes revival. For the die hard adidas fans out there the aptly named “Laces” archive in Herzogenaurach, the spiritual home of 3 stripes and birth place of adidas founder Adolf “Adi” Dassler, is something like the Aladdin’s cave equivalent instead of chests full of jewels of gold it’s a state of the art, windowless and climate-controlled archive space that houses everything from the original Samba shoe to world record breaking marathon silhouettes. 2024 marks the official 75th anniversary of adidas and to celebrate their milestone they’ve invited us into an exclusive insight into their archive.

Located in their 7 story research & development building in in Herzogenaurach, Germany the archive houses classic adi silhouettes like the very first Samba from 1950 which was made for foul weather football on snowy & icy pitches. The innovation of the modern day football boot from a simple leather boot to shoe carry bags and their growing popularity in the 1980s. There’s also iconic shoes boxes, the original Franz Beckenbauer tracksuit from 1967 and the ‘made in France’ Superstar trainer from 1970. The story of adilette which was originally made as shower shoe for the German football team in 1972 as well as adicolor from 1983 and the introduction of adizero in 2008 which broke the Berlin marathon world record courtesy of Haile Gebrselassie.