Tremaine Emory’s collaboration with Adidas, released this week, arrives with a graphic language that refuses to soften itself, and it is being read as one of the most plainly political sneakers the category has produced in years.
His tenure as creative director of Supreme ended in 2023 after he said the company had failed to address systemic racism internally. He has been consistent about the terms of that departure ever since.
Sportswear has been moving in a political direction for several seasons, but mostly in the register of tribute: a name on a heel, an archive pattern, a palette that gestures at a flag and asks nothing further.
The test comes at retail, where a shoe that asks the wearer to agree with something is a harder sale than one that asks nothing at all. Emory has never appeared interested in the easier transaction.
