Summit Special: How adidas and White Mountaineering Scale Sneakers

Basecamp

Soon after the initial announcement in January 2015, White Mountaineering went to work. The two brands were still building a collaborative design language, so they played it safe with some of adidas’ heaver hitters. Two Stan Smiths were the first offerings, coming in grey or blue suede with ‘White Mountaineering’ embossed below the heel. Simple stuff.

Later that year, things ramped up with a premium patent leather Stan Smith, before September’s Consortium collection included the rarely seen Nastase and a pair of ZX Fluxes covered in rocky print.

Plotting a New Path

With trust built, adidas and White Mountaineering aimed a little higher. Their showing at 2016’s Pitti Uomo wowed with garments and sneakers bearing a trademark directional logo – a palpable sign that the relationship had moved to the next level.

This was an era when Originals was Herzo’s biggest focus, and Nic Galway cemented adidas support for White Mountaineering in a post-Pitti interview with Hypebeast, proclaiming, ‘What White Mountaineering stands for is fashion, but it’s not fashion of the past. It’s new fashion. It’s very modern. For adidas Originals this is very important, as I don’t want Originals to be seen as a retro brand at all. Originals should be seen as a cultural brand, and that means understanding where culture is today.’

Over the next 24 months, Aizawa answered the call for modernity with an eager ‘Moshi moshi!’ Nothing was off limits. He rethought the Energy BOOST with luxe leathers, delivered the dramatic neoprene ZX Flux Plus One, strapped Superstar Slip-Ons, and gave us one of the best Tubular drops. If there’s one collection that instilled all that the White Mountaineering x adidas combination meant, it was the 2016 Fall/Winter offering. Its lookbook showed heat-bonded City Socks, EQTs, Forum Mids, and the then-forgotten Seeulater scaling rocky paths. Along with showing depth in product knowledge, it also established a style of art direction – sneakerheads could now pick out a White Mountaineering x adidas shoot without even seeing the logos.

Along with helping adidas usher in the NMD_R2, they also delivered a crowd-favourite in their NMD_R1 Trail. Though pairs also hit shelves in olive and black, it was their Red/Collegiate Navy pair that translated a Paris Fashion Week sighting into long-lasting appeal. Even today you’ll find it fetching lofty sums on the resale market.

Another Summit

More recently, White Mountaineering have wandered further into the hills with Terrex tech. May 2018’s Terrex Two Boas were built with sturdy textiles, including a fastening system that fingers could operate no matter how thin the air gets. Then October 2018 brought a boot version equipped with GORE-TEX, and BOOST was introduced this year via the Terrex Agravic Speed LD.