Yes, that is a man dressed head to toe in adidas Originals standing strong next to a white horse on a hill. This is the Spring/Summer 2013 lookbook for the new adidas Originals by 84-Lab collection, and it’s brave to say the least.
It’s always interesting to see who adidas Originals decide to team up with for their partnerships, mainly down to their openness to explore all kinds of collaborative directions with a wide variety of end results. Here we see the brand head down a sports luxe fashion route, enlisting the direction of 84-Lab, aka Kazuki Kuraishi of Fragment Design. It’s a partnership that garners an interestingly unique end product. One that is firmly rooted in both lifestyle sports and high fashion; not an easy thing to achieve.
As for the lookbook itself, it’s a peculiar mix of location and studio shots, but it plays host to possibly one of the best images to ever come out of the adidas marketing factory – the horse shot. Not only is it an incredible shot technically, but its obscure mashup of cultures does a brilliant job at representing the multi-angled inspiration behind the collection. It’s a crazy mix of hunting heritage, horse riding, lounge suits, technical sporting wear, sneaker culture and contemporary fashion all in one. Quite simply, it shouldn’t work, but it does so well.
Riding hats off to adidas Originals for another brave exploration of what their brand can be and another brilliant partnership in order to reinterpret it. The collection should be landing at key adidas Originals accounts soon.
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