Seven days on from the announcement that Grace Wales Bonner is the new creative director of menswear at Hermès, the designer has found herself front and centre of the fashion news cycle once again. Today marks the campaign reveal of the fall/winter 2025 iteration of her longstanding collaboration with Adidas Originals, launching on 31 October.
Craft has always been at the heart of Wales Bonner, through this partnership and her mainline offerings, and it will also be central to her role at Hermès. For Adidas, the prioritisation of craft and reinterpreting of the sports brand’s codes have led to now immediately-recognisable tailored tracksuit silhouettes, with structured shoulders on the jackets and slightly-tapered leg seams on the pants, realised in elevated fabrications.
The trainers from every release have been commercial winners—many pairs are listed several times their RRP on resale sites—but with unique material choices, Wales Bonner steers far from the trodden path of conventional shoe design. This season the Karintha, an original design ideated by Grace Wales Bonner (not cherry-picked from the Adidas archive like others in the line-up), arrives in suede, sequin and satin with crocheted three stripes, “bringing an evening sensibility to the style”—as the designer tells Vogue.
Trefoil classics are reimagined: the ’60s-hailing Japan, that’s been trending of late, is realised by Wales Bonner in a calming lavender hue; the Superstar is back again with a croc-embossed body, and the Adilette slide features a tactile woven upper. All of which will no doubt be a hit among those who have followed this iconic union since the beginning.
With a new guard of Wales Bonner X Adidas designs comes a new cast of talent. Chris Rhodes captured colourful, stirring portraits of Alva Claire, Bebe Parnell, Shim Mheuka, who is sponsored by Adidas, and Gene Gallagher—the latter of whom has an established connection with Adidas via his dad, Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher, an Adidas devotee on and off the stage.
While Hermès will project Grace Wales Bonner’s vision to luxury heights, her ongoing Adidas partnership will always serve as a more accessible way for people to engage in her incredible design.
Wales Bonner X Adidas fall/winter 2025 will launch on 31 October at Adidas.co.uk (via Confirmed), Walesbonner.com and selected retailers.
This story was originally published on British Vogue.
