adidas Adilette

About

The adidas Adilette began as a favor: a football club manager asked Adi Dassler for a shoe that could protect his players from the germ-prone, shared shower floors at his club. Dassler conceived the design in 1963 but held off building it for nearly a decade while he waited for foam-injection technology capable of producing it. The Adilette finally reached the market in 1972, debuting with the West German national football team shortly before that summer's Munich Olympics, where swimming gold medalists were seen wearing it to and from their races. Built around a wide three-stripe strap over a molded footbed, with a suction-textured sole to prevent slipping on wet tile, it was designed purely as locker-room and poolside functional footwear. That utilitarian identity is what let it travel: by the 1970s the Adilette had moved beyond athletes' showers into everyday wear for sunseekers and vacationers, and it has stayed a fixture in fashion circles ever since. More than fifty years on, it remains one of adidas's most recognizable products and a template that nearly every slide sandal since has followed.