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- Cut
- Low Top
- Upper
- Leather
- Released
- 2023
- Colourway
- Purple
adidas Rivalry Low Unheardof Grandma's Couch Purple
adidas Rivalry Low Unheardof Grandma's Couch Purple
- Cut
- Low Top
- Upper
- Leather
- Released
- 2023
- Colourway
- Purple
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Culture Note™
Released on 11 November 2023 and part of the Rivalry line. This release has a leather upper in Purple/Bright Red/Off White. Rivalry is adidas basketball from the era when the company was still fighting for courts with leather high tops and hard cupsoles, and the Low is the version that survived into street use. It belongs to the same family tree as the Superstar, the shoe that arrived in 1969 with a moulded rubber shell toe and was worn by a reported 75 percent of NBA players by 1973 before hip hop adopted it entirely. This pair is a collaboration with Unheardof, and the name says everything about the intent: Grandma's Couch Purple is a colour reference to upholstery, the deep saturated purple of furniture nobody chose and everybody remembers. It is a joke told through material, which is the best kind of sneaker joke.
Two ways. First, let the purple be the whole point: black or grey trousers, a plain tee, nothing else with colour in it, so the upholstery reference lands. Second, double down: brown or tan corduroy trousers with a cream knit, leaning into the domestic seventies palette the name is quoting. This is a weekend shoe and a photograph shoe, comfortable for city walking but not for distance. Leather basketball lasts run wide and slightly long, so a half size down works for many. Keep the leather conditioned, wipe the midsole with mild soap rather than anything abrasive, and if the upper carries a napped texture, brush it dry and never soak it.
adidas basketball was handed its cultural weight rather than earning it commercially. Run-DMC released My Adidas on 29 May 1986 unpaid, then at Madison Square Garden that July, with adidas executive Angelo Anastasio in the audience, had thousands of people hold their shell toes in the air. The deal that followed was the first between a musical act and an athletic company, and Questlove has called it hip hop's tipping point. Every boutique collaboration on an old adidas basketball silhouette since then is drawing on that permission. The domestic, slightly absurd reference in this one is the current dialect: sneakers as in jokes rather than as status objects.
The Rivalry Low is a leather basketball shoe built on a cupsole, which means a firm, planted ride and a shoe that holds its shape for years rather than collapsing into the foot. The Three Stripes run along the sidewall doing structural work, which is what they were stitched on for when adidas bought the mark from Karhu Sports in 1952 and started calling itself the three stripes company. A colourway named after upholstery lives or dies on material choice, so expect the purple to be carried in a texture that supports the reference rather than in flat leather alone. Underfoot there is no modern foam technology here and none is wanted: this is a hard court silhouette worn on pavement.
- Cut
- Low Top
- Upper
- Leather
- Released
- 2023
- Colourway
- Purple
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