adidas Prime Olympics

• MODEL: ADIDAS PRIME OLYMPICS
• MADE IN: GERMANY
• MADE ON: --/13
• ART.NO: Q21789
• FACTORY: SEF 502001

The only thing more controversial than the color of these shoes is the climate of their creation.

Maybe we’re just too deeply embedded in European culture, or maybe we’ve been ignorant to any negative news at large, but this is the first time we’ve heard the words ‘lawsuit’ or ‘ban’ in connection with adidas since the Jeremy Scott Roundhouse Mid “Handcuff” issue.

Here comes Nike, creators of the Flyknit technology, claiming that adidas has stolen their technique, renamed it Primeknit, and are now immorally selling it as their own innovation. We won’t take the stand as one might expect us to (blindly defending the three stripes without a single blink of an eye) but we similarly won’t side up with the swoosh either, of course.

Actually, I’m not writing this to argue ownership (which is likely what every other single sneaker publication on and offline is going to shine the spotlight upon), as the funny part for me here is the focus. Sure, technologies or inventions have patents and those patents have the right not to be infringed upon, but let’s get serious. Everyone is copying everyone in the sneaker world and always have been since day one. All the brands are looking at each other, seeing who’s doing what, designers getting inspiration, and tons of re-issues from everyone are utilizing the same techniques (take the aspect of snakeskin for example) over and over without a single blink of an eye.

When has a woven shoe ever been such a new thing? Sure these are digitally woven with fused yarn, but the main idea isn’t so radically beyond conception that it defies logic to presume two (or even more) companies came up with it around the same time. And this overlap of ‘collective consciousness’ happens quite a lot in human culture. not just the trainer market.

But amateur opinions and soapbox declarations aside, we still find it shameful that the sneaker scene has to stoop to tales of court rooms and attorneys, two topics that certainly never overlap organically with trainers by default, which we can all (hopefully) agree deserve to reside in a whole ‘nother set of courts altogether. Instead of debating legality and playing sides we’d much rather be spending time writing about (and reading about) the main subject matter at hand: the sneakers themselves.

The bottom line here is that if you dig these Prime Olympics then you best be moving as fast as an adizero trainer is supposed to allow you to in order to snag a pair before adidas’ American adversary wins the suit and the three stripes are forced to drop their Primeknit pieces from shelves worldwide!

(Editor’s note: at the time of writing this article, German distributors have already been successfully banned from selling the shoes).

written by Dylan Cromwell

photography by errol