Adidas Stan Smith 'Bubblegum'
Colorway: Fuchsia Dream/Black-Emerald Rise-Magic Ember-Canyon Purple · Style code: FX5568 · Release date: March 2, 2021 · Price: $2452 · Availability: Available now
Bubblegum is the rare Stan Smith that leaves white off the upper entirely. The leather upper is Fuchsia Dream, a saturated pink, and the trim pulls from four more colours: Black, Emerald Rise green, Magic Ember orange and Canyon Purple. Released March 2, 2021, at $110, it cost $10 more than the plain white and green women's Primegreen pair that arrived the same month. Where most versions of this shoe use one accent against a white field, this one uses a coloured field and several accents, which inverts the whole formula.
The name fits: the pink is the colour of chewing gum, and the mix of green, orange and purple against it reads like a sweet-shop counter. Underneath the colour, nothing structural changes; the perforated rows in the stripe positions, the padded heel tab and the flat cupsole are the standard shoe's. That is what makes a pair like this work. The Stan Smith's shape is so familiar that it can carry a palette this loud without looking like a different design, and the pink upper gives the multicolour trim something to sit on rather than fighting it. It is a spring shoe, best with neutrals that let it be the only colour in the outfit, and for collectors of the model it is one of the few standard releases where the upper itself is the story.