Adidas is treating its iconic Stan Smith increasingly as a blank canvas, at least for markets outside of the U.S.
A few weeks ago, we spotted a cycling version of the shoe. Now with the release of the Stan Smith Freizeit, brought to our attention by the laser-eyed sneaker spotters at HighSnobiety, it appears the company thought luxury dress shoes were worth a shot too.
The classic version of the Stan Smith has always been made of leather. This version takes things up a notch with a tumbled leather exterior and a thicker rubber base.
AdidasI’m admittedly using the term dress shoe loosely here. Fellow footwear nerds might find comparisons to certain old-school walking shoe styles from brands like Mephisto slightly more accurate.
The main argument against the dress shoe label is that while the rubber base does offer an Oxford-style look, especially in black, its chunky, toothy-edged platform is definitively casual.
Then there’s the fact that while the redwood / dark brown color option looks traditional, the so-called core white / aluminum / off-white iteration looks much more like an elevated dress sneaker.
