Wales Bonner x adidas Samba 'Cream Brown'
Colorway: Cream White/Brown/Cream White · Style code: FX7720 · Release date: November 20, 2020 · Price: $410 · 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)
Textile rather than leather separates this from its black twin. adidas lists the colours as Cream White, Brown and Cream White, a warm and nearly monochrome arrangement that leaves nothing sharp anywhere on the shoe, and the woven upper gives it a different surface again from the suede pairs that came later. The Samba's outline is left alone, which was the design decision that defined the entire partnership from this first release onward.
It came out on 20 November 2020 at 180 dollars in the United States, beside a black leather pair at the same price. Those two are the starting point of a collaboration that has since produced dozens of sneakers, and the cream one has proved the more influential. Cream Sambas with warm contrast became one of the defining looks of the following three years, turning up on general releases, on retailer projects and across the rest of the Wales Bonner run itself. Grace Wales Bonner, an English designer born in 1990 who founded her label in 2014, has kept returning to the same register: nothing loud, nothing restructured, everything decided by material and tone.