Wales Bonner x adidas Samba 'Collegiate Navy Yellow'
Colorway: Collegiate Navy/Cream White/Yellow · Style code: S42595 · Release date: March 26, 2021 · Price: $777 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Adidas Wales Bonner Sailor Jacket (JM8217) · Adidas Wales Bonner Quilted Jacket (KE9956SHAMAR) · Wales Bonner x adidas Samba 'Black' (FX7517) · Wales Bonner x adidas Samba 'Scarlet' (GY6612) · Adidas x Wales Bonner Shorts 'White' (KR8773)
Navy is scarce across the Samba catalogue and scarcer still inside the Wales Bonner run, which has been built mostly on black, cream, brown and green. This pair breaks that habit: adidas lists Collegiate Navy with Cream White and Yellow, on a leather upper, and the yellow gives it a sharper contrast than the designer's releases usually carry. Structurally it is the standard shoe, low and flat, with the suede toe overlay and the three stripes in their usual positions.
The release fell on 26 March 2021 at 180 dollars, shared with a black and green make from the same delivery. Grace Wales Bonner founded her London label in 2014 and won the LVMH Young Designer Prize in 2016; adidas brought her in during 2020, and at this point the partnership was only in its second season yet was already setting the terms for how everyone else would treat the silhouette. That matters for a pair like this. Navy with yellow is a football colourway before it is a fashion one, and putting it on an archive trainer rather than a modern shape was still a slightly unusual decision in early 2021.