Entering The Archive: adidas

A Lesson in History

This is an offer you don’t refuse. When adidas provided us the opportunity to visit their archive while researching ‘Terrace Culture‘ we couldn’t say no!

Lucky for us the adidas Global Headquarters in Herzogenaurauch is only a 4 hour train journey away… with some fresh Samba’s on foot i made the journey. Having heard that the archive is locked away in the basement of one of the many buildings on the self-entitled ‘adidas Campus’ we could not wait to see what we would find inside.

Upon arrival we were greeted by the archive manager Sandra and provided white gloves so that we were able to interact with the products within. As we entered it was easy to notice how well controlled the room was, at a constant 17.5ºc towered by dust-free motionless cabinets and trolleys ready to be used as product displays you could feel the history in the room.

We started by looking at one of the oldest pairs of footwear kept at the archive, an old running spike formerly used in the olympics. On our path to current releases we covered all things terrace football from the rise of the Samba to collaborations come and gone. Check out ‘From Forrest Hills to Terraced Stadiums‘ for a more in-depth deep dive.

It wasn’t all footwear that had been archived. In the corner stood a Louis Vuitton Chest acting as a home to all of the official Fifa World Cup balls from Beckenbauers German team to a ball featured in the Qatar World Cup Final…

*World Cup ball singed by the German national Team dated 1970

From products currently being evaluated to unreleased collaborations we felt like we had seen it all however in reality we had only touched the surface. Thank you adidas for this opportunity and cant wait to be back!