Meet Stan Smith, The Man On Your Shoes

Blame it on normcore, blame it on the expansive power of the contemporary hipster, but you cannot deny the prevalence of the new "it" shoe: the Adidas Stan Smith sneaker. Celebrities wear them with designer clothes to shop on Melrose, athletes wear them with sweatpants to and from the gym, and artists wear them with dad jeans to the Sunday market. However, despite Adidas’s prominent marketing of the sneaker in association with Stan Smith, most people do not know who Smith is, what he looks like, or even why his name is on their shoes. 

For the better part of the 1900s, tennis was a sport played by men in dress pants, leather belts, tucked in polo shirts and flat shoes. By the 1970s, however, tennis fashions had changed dramatically, and players frequently opted for comfortable outfits that granted them the ability to move around easier and perform the sport at a higher level. This often results in very short short-shorts, high socks, and simple, white sneakers. 

So, when Stan Smith rose to fame in 1971 as the number one tennis player in the world, Adidas took its first tennis shoe, originally released in 1963 and named after earlier tennis professional Robert Hailett, and rebranded it around Smith. In 1978 the name had stuck, and the shoe was hugely successful. 

In 2015, the shoes are still true to the style of the originals; the silhouette, lining, and core colors all directly reference Smith. However, there are modern updates such as new detail colors, including green, navy, and red, as well as some shoes featuring illustrations of Smith himself on its tongue, all of which appeals to the Adidas modern consumer. They can be found all over the streets of major cities, and while designers like Common Projects, Saint Laurent, and Raf Simons have come out with luxury versions at higher price points, the Adidas Stan Smiths remain the public's favorite. 

What does it say though, that the sneaker initially designed for tennis no longer serves that purpose? Modern technologies have allowed brands like Adidas to develop better fitting shoes with more support and lighter materials intended for the sport of tennis, so now, ironically, Stan Smith sneakers are purely worn recreationally. So why the immense popularity of the Stan Smith? Even though they seem so basic, they are strong in how they have declared a place in the history of both fashion and sport; they have truly stood the test of time. So I would suggest keeping your pair around—Stan doesn't seem to be going anywhere.