Palace x adidas Originals Collection

We’ve done something we never do. We’ve seen something on another site and nicked their pictures. I’m sure ours were in the post, or at least scheduled to be emailed to us in the next couple of days. We got asked to feed out a rather innocuous video featuring the respective logos of adidas and Palace.

Anyway, all property is theft and talent taxes, genius mugs or something. Plus both Style.com and Four-Pins used a capital ‘a’ in adidas, which renders anything they write about the brand inferior to anything written by someone who correctly uses lower case ‘a’. That’s the law. Adi Dassler told me in a dream once.

This stuff, predictably has overtones of pure 90s. There’s a part of me that sees echoes of myself on a trailer tent holiday in Devon, aged around 12. As I’ve mentioned on here far too many times, adidas UK’s main distribution centre (HQ sounds better doesn’t it?) was based mere minutes from my house when I was a kid, and with a father quite active in the local community and in certain circles it meant access to the staff shop was often granted. Shell suits, three stripes, equipment jackets, headbands, jock straps, you name it, it was there. They had these massive baskets, sort of like you get in Primark (never been in there, obviously, I’ve just sneered at them while passing). And you’d find yourself spending three figures on stuff you didn’t know you needed.

Bit like this, then?

It’s all a bit Ronnie Moran.

It’s also pretty Graeme Souness, in both a Liverpool and a Newcastle way. Except there’s no liver bird or magpie on them. There’s no bird at all, just that triangle Palace logo that’s pretty smart.

Does this mean all the cool kids are going to start dressing like 1991 Scousers? Does it mean I’m ok to return to my childhood and hire a trailer tent to go with my (probably) highly flammable trousers.

Of course not. It’s the same, but different. Hype? Sure. But not without substance. The Umbro and Reebok stuff was well received and rightly so. Will this stuff? Depends. I like some of it and as long as it’s not too much of an arse-ache, I will buy something. I like Palace. Maybe it’s the fact it appreciates the things I liked around the time I began pubing? Maybe the 36 year old me likes that a bit. Or maybe I’m talking nonsense and wrote this entire post to ride the hype get some hits on the site. It’s up to you to decide that.

But remember, little ‘a’. at all Times.

@markpropermag