The Stan Smith Adidas: “Some People Think I’m a Shoe.”

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“Was the shoe named after you, or were you named after the shoe?”—Stan Smith’s son, Trevor, at 8 years old.

Origin Story: Stan Smith plays his day match at the French Open. When the clock strikes midnight, the waiters all women dressed as men at a nightclub in Paris. Nothing to do but shake hands with the president of Adidas. You’re the best in the world. They want your name on their best-selling shoe.

Design: The first all leather tennis shoe. Its three stripes give way to three lines of ventilated holes. You sense each stripe’s presence, its shadow. The stripes’ presence without its trumpety blare. The Stan Smith Adidas is elegant, sleek, understated, practical.

Dramatis Personae: David Bowie wore them sockless with loose, white chinos. John Lennon wore them in Strawberry Fields. The French B-boys in Paris wore them. Instant street cred when JayZ raps: “Lampin in the Hamptons / The weekends man / The Stan Smith Adidas.” Naomi Campbell spray paints them silver for a nude photo shoot. Pharrel Williams paints “People Power” on the shoe. They sell no matter what happens. The ceramicist Didi Rojas sees them all over New York and Brooklyn.  She creates a ceramic pair. Shigeki Fujishiro ties various string designs in the ventilated holes. If you want to return the Stan Smith shoe to its original state, you remove the string.

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