adidas EQT Support 93. Life Needs Equipment

 

The 1980s were years full of creativity and sparkle, but it seems that not everyone felt the overdose of imagination in the same way. The passing of adidas founder Adi Dassler and, later on, of his son Horst, together with family disputes and changes of ownership undermined adidas' ability to keep up with the trend for useless gadgets and fluorescent colors that marked this era. 

 

In Europe, adidas was still maintaining its relationship with the big sports names, but the almost mythological aura of the three stripes and its creative nature seemed to be fading in the United States, which represented the main market at the time. Adidas was even failing to reach the small German town of Herzogenaurach, its own birthplace, which was surrounded by references to the original spirit of the company.

 

 

This was the state of affairs until the arrival of Rob Strasser and Peter Moore at adidas. The return to the roots finally came thanks to two strategists who had studied the strengths of the German brand while working with its direct competitors. They were indeed the creators of the Jordan and McEnroe lines for Nike and the Greg Norman one for Reebok.

Both knew the greatness of adidas. All they had to do was to eliminate the superfluous, that is to say, to look for the essential. This is how the adidas Equipment collection was born, created together with the designer of the ZX and Forum, Jacques Chassaing, and identifiable by a new logo stemmed from the three stripes rotated 30 degrees, today as popular as the Trefoil.

 

All items under the EQT label were approved by Strasser and Moore and were designed according to the classic principle of the Bauhaus school of architecture and design: “Form follows function”. A small group of employees worked cross-functionally along the entire process, from the first concept to the design of the catalogs. The name Equipment was close to the original idea: the quest for the essential. And it’s how they discovered that the essential was the functionality of the product.

Initially associated with sports, adidas EQT discovered that the pursuit of what was important was equally valid for any other context: a return to the essentials that other brands took years to understand. Under the EQT concept, sneakers were massively developed and tested by elite athletes, while jeans were designed to become timeless basics. Functionality as the core quality of every aspect of life. Once again, only the essentials. 

The 30th anniversary of the launch of the adidas EQT reminds us of what is essential through a Running Support 93 adapted to a new functionality.