The adidas Stan Smith. One of the world’s most iconic pieces of footwear. Simple, understated and elegant. A silhouette so popular that it would eventually eclipse the man whose name it bore. But just like Hoover, Ferrari and Gillette, Stan Smith was a real person – and this is the story of how his name, face and signature came to be stamped on more than 100 million pairs of adidas trainers.
The first iteration of what would become the Stan Smith entered the adidas catalogue in the 1960s. Adi Dassler wanted to create a model that would serve as adidas’s answer to the growing popularity of tennis. Something that would catch the audience’s eye while gliding across the green courts of Wimbledon. His brief was simple: the shoe should be lightweight, white and built for performance.
There was just one hitch: he didn’t want three stripes on it.
For whatever reason, Dassler decided against using his brand’s most recognisable calling card – a design element he had spent two decades building into an icon. Perhaps he thought consumers would mistake it for a repurposed running shoe. Or maybe he felt the stripes would detract from the all-white aesthetic that had become synonymous with tennis.
We’ll never know the real reason, but what we do know is that it presented the adidas design team with a problem.
They needed a way to identify the silhouette as adidas without using the brand’s most famous piece of branding. After plenty of head-scratching – and perhaps a few tennis balls bounced off the studio wall – they found their solution: a series of perforations arranged in the familiar three-stripe formation. It was three stripes, but not three stripes. A uniquely minimalist approach that undoubtedly helped propel the Stan Smith to icon status.
To finish the design, they wrapped the heel tab in a shade of green lifted straight from the manicured courts of Wimbledon.
adidas had the silhouette. They had the colourway. They had the sport. The only thing they didn’t have was a superstar to wear it – so they went and got into contact with a man called… Robert Haillet.
That’s right. The Stan Smith was never meant to be the Stan Smith. The person who first had their name printed along the side of the shoe (sadly, his face never made it to the tongue) was a stern-faced Frenchman. Haillet was at the top of his game when adidas decided to enter the tennis market – although it has to be said, Robert Haillet doesn’t quite roll off the tongue quite as nicely as Stan Smith does, does it?
The Robert Haillet was received with moderate popularity, but it was by no means setting the courts alight. And neither was Haillet himself. In 1971, he retired from professional tennis, leaving adidas to look for a new figurehead. For a year, they considered player after player. Some too tall, some too short. Some too established, some too inexperienced. Eventually, they settled on Stan Smith, the recent Wimbledon champion who agreed to quite literally step into Haillet’s shoes.
At long last, adidas had a name they could print on the side of their tennis shoe that would roll off the tongue perfectly. And somehow, they still decided to name it the Stan Smith Haillet. Until they came to their senses and dropped the Haillet. In 1978, the Stan Smith as we know it today was born.
Throughout the ’70s and into the ’80s Stan Smith continued to win, and to adidas’ delight his namesake silhouette continued to sell. His portrait (although somewhat unidentifiable without his trademarked moustache) was sported on the tongues of tennis enthusiasts across the globe – reminding people each time they laced up their shoes who Stan Smith was. Until one day, we all forgot.
Somewhere, the adidas Stan Smith superseded its namesake. By 1989, adidas and Stan Smith made their way into the Guinness Book of Records after selling a staggering 22 million pairs. Today, that figure is closer to 100 million. And we’d hazard a guess that most people wearing them now couldn’t tell you who Stan Smith actually is.
Part of the reason is that, in 1985, Stan Smith stepped away from professional tennis. And the adidas Stan Smith stepped away with him. No longer confined to the court, the silhouette began a second life on streets, terraces and high streets around the world.
The minimal all-white design makes the Stan Smith work with anything, everything and on everyone. It’s smart, but not too smart. Clean, but not boring. These characteristics have led to the Stan Smith becoming deeply embedded in fashion, spawning collaborations with everyone from Raf Simons to Kermit the Frog.
And still, with all the collaborations, limited editions and exclusive versions we have now. We always find ourselves coming back to the original. Green heel counter, skinny white tongue, perforations on the side, and a man’s name written in gold lettering – Stan Smith.
Head over to SEVENSTORE, who recently flew over to France to find out more about the Stan Smith Story
