Launching next week, London-based menswear designer Craig Green’s latest collaboration with the sportswear behemoth takes the Stan Smith shoe into the future
adidas Originals by Craig GreenThe products of Craig Green’s design speak to his fiercely complex, creative mind. The London-based designer’s recent collection for S/S23 shown during Paris Fashion Week Men’s solidified the designer’s status in a packed and clamouring calendar, where his inclination towards thoughtful, utilitarian menswear affixed with a technical know-how found Green peaking new heights in esteem.
Fusing the British designer’s aptitude for menswear with adidas’ tech-sportswear prowess, the two labels first joined forces for Craig Green’s Spring/Summer 2020 show, and since then, their collaborations have spawned some of the most desirable trainers on the market. The CG SCUBA STAN, which launches October 31, is the latest fruits of their partnership, continuing the design language of the CG SCUBA PHORMAR introduced for A/W21.
Key to the new style is a motif borrowed from Green’s previous collections: the wraparound tension cord. The detail is coherent in the world of Craig Green in its fused sense of form and function, baggage and equipment – of being emotional yet prepared. While in Green’s previous menswear designs the tension cords have been seen wrapping around stitching on jackets, or detailing a trouser leg – now in this progression with adidas Originals, the cord traces and details the iconic leather adidas Original Stan Smith style. Weaving through the trainer, it acts as a tether connecting Craig Green, a new guard of menswear, with adidas, an enduring champion in sportswear.
The CG SCUBA STAN model reinvents a classic that forms a pillar in footwear; a blueprint beloved for its optimum comfort, support and effortless style. Two years ago, sports behemoth adidas celebrated its 100th birthday, and today the brand continues to reference a rich tapestry of the past to innovate the fashions of the future. Partnering with Craig Green provides no exception in an eternal quest to reinvent our best. “What I love about fashion is that it’s a team activity,” Green told AnOther earlier this year. “You can’t really do it alone. You need a team and you need to work with people and you need to be around people, and I love that feeling of community.”
The new campaign sees almost alien figures sporting the new CG SCUBA STANs, wrapped in a futuristic rubber-like material, which is detailed with Craig Green’s signature tension cord lacing. The campaign is the creation of photographer and long-term collaborator Dan Tobin Smith, who captured sculptural fluid forms wearing the new style in its three colour ways: beige, black, and the signature white and green of the classic adidas Originals Stan Smith. The shapes reference and breathe new life into the contours of the timeless adidas Trefoil logo, and spotlight the thoughtful interplay between the shoe’s materials and silhouette. The result accentuates a shoe that draws inspiration from the past to inform style for today, and for the future.
The adidas Originals and Craig Green CG SCUBA STAN shoe is available October 31 through adidas Confirmed and select retailers.