Adidas Samba OG Silver Dawn Chalk

Pale on pale wants softness around it. Try cream wide leg trousers with an oatmeal knit for a fully tonal outfit where the shoe finishes the line, or grey flannel trousers with a white shirt for something smarter that still avoids looking formal. Keep dark raw denim away in the first weeks, since indigo transfers onto pale leather and suede. Size a half down for narrow feet. Protect the suede before wearing, wipe marks the day they appear, and accept that this colourway is a dry weather shoe: wet streets and pale leather do not coexist for long. Keep a suede eraser in the house rather than reaching for water.

adidas effectively invented the modern fashion designer sneaker partnership, from Yohji Yamamoto's Y-3 through Stella McCartney since 2004, then Jeremy Scott, Raf Simons and Alexander Wang. Tonal, low contrast colourways are the mainstream inheritance of that programme: the idea that a sports silhouette can be treated as a material and proportion exercise rather than as a team kit. A silver and chalk Samba is Originals product speaking to people who came to adidas through fashion rather than through sport, and who want the shape without the signalling. The Trefoil that marks this range, drawn in 1971 for the 1972 Munich Olympics, is the only badge such a shoe needs.

A chalk toned leather upper with a suede overlay at the toe and silver dawn Three Stripes stitched along the quarter, on the low flat outsole. On a tonal pair the stitching becomes the visible detail rather than the colour, so the quality of the panel work is what you actually see. Pale on pale is the least forgiving finish adidas offers: creasing across the vamp shows as shadow, scuffs show as dark marks, and there is no dark trim anywhere to hide a dirty edge. The shoe stays flat, low and unpadded underfoot, which keeps it elegant under a trouser hem and hard work on a long concrete day.