adidas - The Equipment Years

For some reason, the 90s—in the footwear part of my mind—has no room for adidas other than reissues of the Gazelles, Sambas, and Superstars Blur and Oasis fans wore. Actually, though, some of the shoes adidas were making at the time are looking seriously good, all of a sudden, even if way back then I probably thought adidas had lost their minds. I guess part of this had to do with adidas' performance items now being rebranded as adidas Equipment back in 1991 when they replaced the traditional adidas Trefoil with the new simplified adidas logo. I guess the Trefoil's three rugby balls had little place on a basketball boot. B-ball being the sport all sporstwear manufacturers were obsessed with, when Nike owned the NBA's floors, and signing Kobe as a rookie in 1996 certainly put adidas basketball on the map forever.

ADIDAS EQUIPMENT

These were massively hyped upon their release, around about the time adidas Equipment itself launched, so we're talking 1991 or 92. I remember one of the two rich kids in my area having the exact pair above. The interchangeable sock bootie thing—which was 100% influence by the Tinker Hatfield-designed Air Huarache—is actually a pretty good, if novel idea, but it never really caught on, and these disappeared quicker than pills up Boy George's arse, circa 92.

The catalog featuring the two different uppers, the four booties, and the tech-spec.

Adidas really went with that bottle green that had now taken over from their original blue and is pretty much the most 90s color going, after purple and on footwear neons. Even their football teams were clad in that, remember the Liverpool and Germany away kits in the mid-90s? This shoe is a monstrosity, btw. Try breaking your ankle in that!

I am not even going to pretend I remember the name of this or who rocked it in the NBA, but I do remember this shoe and its weird internal wiring system. The wiring, one would assume, enhanced fit by wrapping the upper closer to the foot, avoiding any unwanted foot movement, but it kinda looks like something out of Event Horizon or something.

Never saw these 'til I began researching for this piece, although as ugly as it may be, I do miss the two-toneness of 90s b'ball shoes. Does anyone remember the Reebok Blast? It was black on the outside and inside of one foot and white on the inside on the outside of the other, so that when signature wearer Nick Van Exel was on the court he looked to be wearing white shoes one minute, black shoes the next—hella confusing! Note how this shoe has no actual three stripes anywhere, but the three red lace hooks are subtly giving that three stripes effect, albeit toned down. The whole point of the two-toned shoes of the 90s was the illusion they would form when seen from a distance—the angle TV shows basketball at.

Aside from the whole color-blocking of 90s shoes, another thing that was big then was the repositioning brand's logos. Sadly, when brands try to rethink the positioning of their logo, or the way it should face, it really ever looks good. Look at those three stripes trying to wrap themselves round the heel of this disaster, haha. If you look closely, though, there are actually three navy lace locks on the upper too, with an Equipment logo on the ankle and sole, with one almost certainly to feature on this shoe's tongue too. Over-branding was very 90s.

FEET YOU WEAR

Enter adidas' Feet You Wear range. The idea was that the sole mimicked the foot—not exactly rocket science when applying technology to a shoe designed for a sport that is foot-based. I absolutely HATED the logo, though, which looks kind of like a fake Fido Dido after too much caffeine. Kobe signed to adidas when he entered the NBA as a rookie in 1996 and wore Feet You Wear before his seriously ugly Audi-designed signature line in the early 2000s.

The EQT Elevation which Kobe wore in his rookie year, 1996

His first signature shoe, 1997's KG8, in various colorways.

The KG8 II, 1998.

These are giving me vertigo.

The KG8 III, 1999.

Kobe takes five before a match showing the feet he wears.

The adidas Top Ten 2000 which Kobe wore for a brief time.

The next few shoes I have no idea really what sport they were intended for or when they came out either. It is hard to guess with the total clusteruck of shapes and logos. At a guess, I'd say these are for cross training and judging by the logo placement, shape, colorway—damn, everything about this shoe screams mid-90s overkill.

This looks like a shoe you might wear to wrestle a Klingon in, or something. Look at that sole! Feet you wear? Whose feet look like that, exactly??

The adidas Real Deal II.

The ball was not dropped when it came to these later 90s, early 2000s Real Deal. This was one of the last in the FYW range and you know what, I actually kinda like these. Again, they look like they'd be more at home on the feet of an intergalactic tyrant hellbent on liquefying the brains of homosapiens than on the hardwood of a basketball court, but hey, they look cool.