This season, Blue Version returns to once again take up its mantle as the pinnacle expression of the Trefoil brand.
I recently wrote a post discussing the lack of performance basketball marketing adidas has done during the NBA Finals, although the brand has one of the best young stars in the league in Jaylen Brown playing. adidas pads a decision to extend basketball to fashion designer Jerry Lorenzo and it’s been two years and only one sweater has arrived from the basketball division which spent camp moving from Portland to Los Angeles. While that strategy isn’t paying dividends and it appears to be in limbo, adidas continues to lean into the international market with their fashion savvy. The Blue Version is in its 3rd season.
The collection, “traverses the breadth of the adidas sporting archive – oscillating purposefully between tennis and soccer, court and field – in order to project a relentlessly subversive image of the brand’s future. Looking back, only ever to look forward, unmatched dynamism manifests through sophisticated reinterpretations of archival Challenger, Chile, and CLRDO codes.” In the description the brand recognizes their strength lies in reinterpreting their archive for sports where the brand has consistently offered both performance and fashion options. Which moves this back to basketball and the lack of connection at one of the most critical moments of the game, the NBA Finals.
Basketball has become seasonless as the NBA has found a way to deliver their game throughout the year. One of the highlights of their season sits in the NBA Draft which is infamous for the suits worn as the league’s next stars walk to shake hands with the commissioner. This collection could be given an early runway if adidas was cohesively moving their divisions towards the goal of elevating sport and the culture around moments where fashion is highlighted equally as much as the games played by their endorsed athletes. Instead, the Blue Collection will be reserved for IG promotion and will possibly miss a captive audience watching the creation of the next millionaires.