Adidas Gazelle

For legions of young Brits in the early 1980s, Adidas shoes were something of a rite of passage. In the north of England, a version of the original Gazelle was fairly easily attainable and affordable. Like many, Aspden favors the early 1980s incarnation of the shoe. He and his friends in the northern English town of Darwen had local access to several Adidas designs, but only one would do. "We called shoes like Monaco, Madeira, and Samoa the 'poor man’s Gazelles,’ as they had suede uppers but were a fiver cheaper than the Gazelle. Gazelle was the shoe everyone wanted," he says. As hip-hop began to boom in Europe on the back of electro, rap and Malcolm McLaren’s shrewd repackaging of the culture, New York scene staples like Superstars or the Campus might have been sighted on record sleeves but, given basketball’s then niche status in most continents beyond the USA, they were scarce until their 1990s reissue. Gazelles were one of the closest things aesthetically and their reputation was strong. Subsequently, it became the shoe to have for a nascent hip-hop scene overseas. While the soccer-centric casual audience — those terrace types (hooligans to Americans) who were key to building Adidas from the late 1970s to the present day — have always loved the shoe, this imported realm of dance, music, and art was key to driving its popularity.