adidas revealed a huge announcement today that included the reveal of Jerry Lorenzo’s Fear of God reaching a long-term deal with The Three Stripes as the designer officially leaves Nike for The Three Stripes to reimagines adidas hoops.
Once again another designer has left Nike for adidas which is becoming something we see all too often. While it doesn’t appear to be due to drama or a falling out between two parties and more of a lack of communication, The Three Stripes were able to secure Jerry Lorenzo to their own for a multi-year deal. The official announcement read, “Today, we are officially announcing our long-term partnership with Fear of God, led by owner and founder Jerry Lorenzo. With this groundbreaking partnership, Lorenzo will drive the creative and business strategy for adidas basketball globally. The alliance challenges and exists beyond traditional collaboration –– and is the truest and most honest form of both personal and business relationship. The partnership will also solidify the establishment and formation of the third pillar of the Fear of God house, Fear of God Athletics. The new pillar will focus on performance basketball and active lifestyle products that complete Fear of God’s triune nature and compliments the brand’s other two pillars, Essentials and Fear of God’s luxury mainline.”
While much of Lorenzo’s Nike collaborations had athletic wear at its core, adidas will be no different as now the focus will be directly on athletics, specifically basketball. It will be interesting to see where the two go from here and if the designer has more freedom to do what his vision calls for as we know there were rumors in the past about Nike’s constraints with designers, Kanye being a perfect example. Brian Grevy, adidas Executive Board Member responsible for Global Brands, states, “Jerry’s authentic connection to sport, deep understanding of the footwear industry and past, and ability to reinterpret heritage and visualize the future excites us. We look forward to working with him to inspire the next generation of basketball creatives, athletes and communities.” which is a perfect example of how much an asset adidas sees Fear Of God and Jerry himself.
UPDATE 4/20: We have first look images of the Fear of God adidas Basketball collection which you can check out below thanks to a first look at a new upcoming model thanks to drethemayor / mrdeanwalker.
