Raf Simons x adidas Stan Smith Comfort Badge 'Core Black'
Colorway: Core Black/Core Black/Core Black · Style code: BB6886 · Release date: July 18, 2017 · Price: $412 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Adidas Raf Simons Bounce (B24080) · Raf Simons x adidas Bounce (B26074) · Adidas Raf Simons Spirit 5 (DA8760) · Adidas Raf Simons Ozweego 2 (AQ2641) · Raf Simons x adidas Stan Smith (AQ2647)
Everything on this pair is black, including the parts that are usually the point. The upper, the three hook-and-loop straps, the cupsole and the two oversized chenille letters are all Core Black, so the 'R' and 'S' patches that spell out Raf Simons's initials read through texture, fuzzy chenille against smooth leather, rather than through contrast. It is the darkest of the three Comfort Badge colourways from Simons's Fall/Winter 2017 adidas range, which also came in Power Red and Talc, all at $300. This one released July 18, 2017.
The Comfort Badge is a second act for Simons on this silhouette. His earlier Stan Smith, from 2014, kept the laces but cut a perforated 'R' into the side in place of the stripe rows and put his own portrait on the tongue where Stan Smith's usually sits; the Comfort Badge goes further, dropping laces entirely for a strap closure adidas otherwise uses on children's Stan Smiths and enlarging the initials into oversized patches on each quarter panel. The Simons and adidas partnership began with his Fall/Winter 2013 Paris show, and this pair sits in the middle of that run: a $300 fashion take on a plain tennis shoe, with the straps making it the easiest of his Stan Smiths to get on and the all-black finish making it the easiest to wear.