adidas Originals Archive News – An Interview with Gary Aspden



With that in mind, did you draw inspiration from other parts of the adidas back catalogue?
Yes - we combined the Sevilla inspired upper with the Gazelle OG tooling and puzzled for some time over how best to brand the tongue (a lot of the OG adidas Leisure shoes had no branding on the tongue or at best a stamp).
Now that you’ve got the finished product, how do you think it compares to the source material that inspired you in the first place?
Better. Some purists believe that the original designs can never be topped but I have to disagree in some cases. Some of adidas’s archive is made up of timeless, design classics that are unbeatable. I believe there are some models that with some simple modifications can be improved. When I began working with adidas in the late 90s I constantly badgered the product managers about reissuing leisure shoes like the Palermo and Korsika as I remembered them from my youth. The tooling no longer existed and the product teams generally prioritise creating new toolings that have the potential to become commercial propositions. With some of the leisure shoe tooling their commercial viability is questionable. They weren’t convinced that the demand for these relatively niche styles would fulfil that commercial criteria. Around 2000 I found some deadstock adidas in Scandinavia and there were several pairs of Korsika in small sizes (I actually gave a pair to Noel Gallagher). Finally getting hold of the shoe was strange because, it seemed very different to how I had remembered seeing them when I was younger.
You’ve spoken before about wanting to re-inspire interest in the Leisure range. What is it you enjoy so much about it? Do you think combining that style with trainer tooling is a way of making it more contemporary - bridging a gap?
I think there is some interest that already exists but a lot of newer adidas fans are not necessarily aware of these styles. adidas creating and producing leisure shoes has a legitimacy because of its history in this area. There is something very European/ Germanic about these types of shoes. They are understated and are the antithesis of the crassness of much modern ‘streetwear’.