Adidas Stan Smith 'White Collegiate Green'
Colorway: Cloud White/Collegiate Green/Off White · Style code: EE5789 · Price: $80 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Adidas Stan Smith (S75076) · Adidas Stan Smith 'Allover Stamped Stan' (EF5005) · Adidas Wmns Stan Smith (B26590) · Adidas Stan Smith 'Sustainability' (FV0534) · adidas Stan Smith 'Pride' (GW2417)
Few colourways define a shoe as completely as white and green defines the Stan Smith, and this $90 pair is that colourway in its standard form: Cloud White leather upper, Collegiate Green on the padded heel tab, Off White for the sole. The three rows of perforations on each side stand in for the Three Stripes that adidas leaves off this model, and Stan Smith's sketched portrait sits on the tongue label. Nothing about it is unusual, which is exactly the point; it is the reference version every other colourway is measured against.
The green tab is the detail that carries the history: it was added in the late 1960s as Achilles-tendon protection on a shoe then named for French player Robert Haillet, and the model only became the Stan Smith outright in 1978, after Smith, the 1971 US Open and 1972 Wimbledon champion, had signed with adidas in 1973. Adidas has since built the design in Boost, Vulc, Platform and Primegreen versions and worked on it with Raf Simons, Pharrell Williams, Balenciaga and Yohji Yamamoto, but the plain white and green leather pair remains the version those variations refer back to. The leather is smooth and takes a polish, the cupsole is flat and low, and at $90 it is priced as the everyday pair rather than a special one. If you own one Stan Smith, this is the colour it should be.