Stan Smith

Stan Smith was an American tennis player who won just about everything the game had to offer but were it not for the iconic shoes that adidas made for him then I wouldn't be writing this - it's all about the shoes. Just as firmly as I believe every record collection should have a copy of Pépé Bradock Life I believe that every respectable shoe collector should have a pair of Stan Smiths tucked away somewhere.

The shoe was introduced as the first all leather tennis shoe and interestingly they were never originally intended for Stan Smith but rather the earliest version of the shoe was produced in cooperation with and endorsed by French tennis player, Robert Haillet - this first version of the shoe had a thick outsole and lacked the adidas trefoil logo on the heel. In the mid-60s, an up and coming tennis phenomenon came to the attention of adidas, and the shoes were renamed in 1971 after Stan Smith who went on to win seven Davis Cups, 39 singles titles and 61 doubles crowns in his distinguished career. His shoes have gone on to sell 30 million pairs and counting and the company has just recently released a limited edition Tournament Edition to presumably coincide with Wimbledon this year. There are two versions out, the green heeled one that I stumped for, which is limited to 1000 pairs worldwide and the even harder to get wallet-bursting off-white edition that has the number of the shoe embossed into the heel, I think they're limited to 300 pieces at most. If I see a pair for a decent price I'll probably buy them, I'm mad like that. They also released a t-shirt that proudly proclaims the wearers love for the shoes and it is a t-shirt that I wear with pride, and one that does get me a very extra nerd points along the way.




You can buy these from any of the adidas Originals stores in the US, and I'm assuming worldwide.