The Adidas Stan Smith is a classic silhouette that I had been thinking about adding to my rotation ever since the Three Stripes brought it back in December 2013. After many months of putting it of because of the lack of urgency, I finally found a reason to get a pair in the classic white and green colourway.
Before I had ever heard of the Adidas Stan Smith, I had always associated the name with the lead character from American Dad. It was only much later that I found out that Stan Smith is a former World No. 1 tennis player that was signed by Adidas to endorse the Robert Haillet tennis shoe in 1971, which would later take on the name of the two-time Grand Slam champion.
In October 2014 Adidas announced a special edition of the Stan Smith that payed homage to the American Dad. The face of the classic “Endorsed by: Stan Smith” graphic was replaced with a portrait of the cartoon character and the insoles were printed with picture of him posing in a tennis uniform in front of a Star Spangled Banner. As a fan of Seth MacFarlane’s work as well as the Stan Smith silhouette I wanted to get my hands on them.
However, similar to the reissue of the Stan Smith in December 2013 the shoes had a very low priority, since they never looked like selling out and I wanted to wait for them to go into clearance. Even though Adidas never dropped the price, I noticed the stock getting lower and sizes disappearing on their website in March, which is why I finally decided to get my pair before it was too late.
I had always wondered about the price tag, which was significantly higher than the regular Stan Smith. When I held the shoes in my hand for the first time I understood – the quality was remarkably superior to that of the regular model with upper boasting a much softer leather upper. The silhouette is very basic but is easily combined with a lot of outfits, which is why I know I will wear them a lot this summer.
Max the Black does Cardiff 