The Adidas Ethos: Sports and Fashion
Adidas is one of the most easily recognised brands in the world. Indeed, they enjoy a global reputation, with outlets in all for corners of the globe. Their popularity as a brand is unsurprising, they have the unique ability to create sportswear that is comfortable, enhances performance, protects sportspeople from overstraining, but with the added bonus that their clothing is also fashionable. This gives them a much wider appeal than to the sporting community alone, their popularity encompasses a much broader audience.
Many sports personalities prefer the Adidas brand; you simply need to look to their advertising projects to see that even the highest calibre sportspeople endorse the Adidas brand. In part, this is because Adidas celebrate sports, and sports personalities, for instance, they pay tribute to favourite sportspeople by developing lines of clothing named after some of the world’s greatest sportspeople. For example, the Adidas Beckenbauer track top is a tribute to the incredible German footballer, Franz Beckenbauer, who played in three world cups, 1966, 1970, and 1974.
These personalities would not endorse these products if they did not meet the highest specifications, which the Adidas brand certainly does. Adi Dassler created the Adidas brand during the 1920s (although it was not until 1948 that he chose Adidas as the company name). His vision was to create a line of sports shoes that would protect the player from the injuries and stress inherent with professional sports, this meant creating shoes that protected ankles, provided suspension, had a strong outer shell, and yet were also malleable and would allow freedom of movement. His vision continues to be the underlying ethos of the Adidas brand, and we see it in all the lines of merchandise that the company produces.
Over the course of the past two decades, Adidas extended their vision; they wished to create sportswear that was fashionable and appealed to a much broader audience. From this expansion, Adidas Originals was born. Cottoning on to the popularity of the retro fashion scene, Adidas began rereleasing lines that had long since stopped production. The Adidas Beckenbauer track top is a perfect example; first released in 1982 it has now made its comeback and is a firm favourite amongst many fashionable people.
Urban fashion fans love the Adidas Originals line of fashion, which the hip-hop and the Britpop community finding it particularly attractive. Amongst the Adidas fashion ranges, there are many accessories, that are geared towards fashion tastes, rather than sporting requirements: the retro shoulder bags, digital watches, socks, holdalls; these are all available from the Adidas Originals range.
As well as branching into fashion, Adidas have also extended their sporting appeal and now cater for a much broader range of athletes. Skateboarders, Skaters, Ice Skaters, Bowlers and Javelin throwers, can all find sporting accessories from the Adidas brand.
