The Adidas Stan Smith trainers as we know them were for a while known under another title, the Haillet, after the French Tennis star Robert Haillet. Unfortunately, when Haillet retired from playing tennis, Adidas thought he might not have earned enough titles to immortalise the trainers and so they looked elsewhere for someone who could help bring the trainers to people’s attention.
After Stan Smith took on the endorsement of these iconic shoes, he went on to win the US Open, Wimbledon and a number of other trophies. Although it’s highly unlikely to see Stan Smith in a professional tennis game now, at their time they were an innovative training shoe. From the leather material to the green padding to protect the Achilles tendon, the Adidas Stan Smith was one of a kind.
In 2014, the Adidas Twitter account tweeted: “A legend returns”. This marked the end of a two-year hiatus from shop shelves and an all-round drought of Adidas Stan Smith trainers. Upon its return, the shoe was featured in a host of catwalk appearances and received numerous celebrity endorsements, such as that of supermodel Gisele Bündchen, who appeared on the cover of Vogue wearing nothing but a pair of Adidas Stan Smiths. For these reasons and more, the shoe experienced a massive surge in sales.
