The key player has spoken, has the next hit category for sneakers been finalized?

The popularity of thin-soled sneakers is fading. Adidas has admitted this more than once internally. The company is pinning its next growth driver on a tennis shoe that was born more than 50 years ago.

This type of footwear is commonly referred to in the industry as lifestyle tennis shoes. They do not pursue professional competitive performance, but integrate tennis elements into designs suitable for daily wear. The familiar name Stan Smith is brewing a massive comeback. It has different origins from Samba: one comes from the tennis court, while the other comes from the football training ground. Over the past three years, Samba has turned football training shoes into a street trend, and now Adidas wants to replicate the same logic for tennis shoes with Stan Smith.

On the Q2 2024 earnings call, Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden (hereinafter referred to as Gulden) said that although Terrace models such as Samba and Gazelle are still performing strongly, the company is preparing for the future. By the 2025 annual earnings call, he put it more directly: the emergence of Samba brought Adidas "back to the position people want us to be in", but the company "is very clear that it needs to find other supporting points" to sustain its business.

In the second quarter of 2026, Adidas' footwear business grew by only 1%. For Adidas' core category, this figure almost equals stagnation. In the same period, the apparel business grew by 35%, and the sports performance business grew by 39%. The lifestyle business, which includes Terrace models such as Samba and Gazelle, only grew by 2%. Footwear saw marginal growth, the lifestyle segment was weak, while professional sports and apparel segments were growing. The trend of the brand's internal category structure is already very clear.

From Samba unexpectedly becoming a street hit in 2023, to Superstar briefly taking over the baton in 2025, to the data signals in Q2 of this year, the popularity cycle of Terrace sneakers has lasted for about three years.

According to data from Reuters and Bernstein analysts, Samba generated 1.5 billion euros in sales in 2024, accounting for 7% of Adidas' total revenue, almost catching up with the peak Yeezy record of 1.7 billion euros. Every category has to face one question: what is the next one?

The answer Adidas gives is exactly Stan Smith.

On the Q2 2026 earnings call just held on July 30, Gulden singled out Stan Smith for the first time, saying it is about to resume growth. "We have strong signals from fashion shows, consumer surveys and research that this trend is coming," he told analysts.

Stan Smith is the best-selling sneaker in Adidas' brand history, with cumulative sales exceeding 100 million pairs. When it was launched in the 1970s, it was the first leather tennis shoe on the market. But in the past few years, it has been more like a forgotten icon: it was over-distributed, heavily discounted, and available everywhere, losing the sense of scarcity that a classic should have.

Gulden revealed on the earnings call that before the official comeback of Stan Smith, Adidas had already withdrawn part of the existing Stan Smith inventory from the market in advance. If the shoe is ubiquitous on the streets now, it will be difficult to control the price when the brand officially pushes it. The strategy is to first take back the stock to create a sense of scarcity, and then release it when the time is ripe.

This operation logic is exactly the same as the way Adidas operated Samba back then. Before 2022, Samba was also a pair of shoes that was almost ignored on the shelves. Adidas spent two years gradually narrowing distribution channels, controlling supply volume, cooperating with celebrities and launching co-branded collections, and finally turned it into the biggest hit in the past three years.

During Paris Fashion Week in June this year, Stan Smith has gone through multiple rounds of preheating. Designer Willy Chavarria previewed two Stan Smith co-branded models at his 2027 Spring/Summer show. Tennis legend Stan Smith himself also showed up at the scene, wearing a pair of green suede versions. Y-3, the brand co-founded by Adidas and Yohji Yamamoto, launched the square-toe Stan Smith SQ. Australian fashion brand Song for the Mute also launched its co-branded version. Adidas even rented an entire building in Paris to hold two days of themed events for Stan Smith.

Willy Chavarria co-branded Stan Smith

But Adidas is not the only brand moving in this direction in the market.

Puma re-launched the GV Special this year, with a co-branded collection in collaboration with Argentine tennis legend Guillermo Vilas. This shoe was first born in the 1980s, and now it is re-launched with the "aesthetics that integrates court and street culture", covering full lines from co-branded models to basic styles. Nike has made continuous efforts on the Tennis Classic line: it launched the terry cloth version and PRM upgraded version in May, and launched the Nike SB Tennis Classic co-branded version in July. Asics has a more intensive layout: it launched the GEL-Challenger 15 in collaboration with FP Movement, and the GEL-Resolution 5 in collaboration with Little Tokyo Table Tennis. Lacoste deepened its cooperation with Roland-Garros and launched a lifestyle co-branded series. FILA's lifestyle tennis shoes are also being continuously updated.

Luxury brands are also entering the market in their own way. Prada launched the tennis-style Court sneaker series as early as 2023, and by the 2026 Spring/Summer show, this type of white tennis shoe became the absolute protagonist. Bally re-launched the 1983 Competition tennis shoe in its 2026 Spring/Summer collection.

The core logic of luxury brands is to enhance the premium capability of their brands in the sport fashion field through tennis aesthetics, while the core logic of mass brands is closer to the path of Samba: using a classic shoe shape from the tennis court, and turning it into a daily wearable styling item for ordinary people.

Fashion media are also paying attention to this trend. WWD named Stan Smith "Shoe of the Year", saying it "has experienced another major comeback this year". British Vogue wrote: "In the era of chunky dad sneakers, classic white tennis shoes offer a minimalist 1990s-style feel." The Vogue report also mentioned that the comeback of white canvas sneakers is becoming a key trend for summer 2026. Grazia said: "Everyone's favorite Adidas sneaker is finally cool again."

The core of lifestyle tennis shoes is not to let consumers wear them to play tennis, but to give people who wear them a subtle tennis vibe: clean, minimalist, retro but not exaggerated, and perfectly wearable in daily scenarios.

Gulden said on the earnings call that when Stan Smith becomes popular, it will take the world by storm, usually driven by Europe first, then spread to Asia, and finally reach the United States. He also mentioned that the all-white colorway of Stan Smith and Superstar currently has very strong demand in the high-end US market.

Data from Mordor Intelligence shows that the global tennis shoe market reached about 3.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2025, and is expected to reach 4.6 billion U.S. dollars by 2031, with a compound annual growth rate of more than 6%. The growth of tennis shoes is driven by more people wearing tennis shoes off the court. The vast majority of buyers of Stan Smith, GV Special and Tennis Classic do not play tennis at all. Against the backdrop of declining demand for basketball sneakers and intensified competition in the running shoe track, the Terrace category is in urgent need of a follow-up product line. Tennis perfectly meets this requirement: it has cultural genes, high recognition, and has not been over-commercialized.

Data from the International Tennis Federation shows that the number of tennis players worldwide has exceeded 100 million. The audience structure of tennis is also changing, with more young people and more women participating in the sport. Coco Gauff wore a pair of Miu Miu x New Balance co-branded tennis shoes at Wimbledon. Wimbledon is the highest symbol of tennis tradition and elite style, and its all-white dress code has lasted for hundreds of years. When a luxury brand that has almost no intersection with sports venues chooses tennis shoes as the carrier to enter the sport fashion track, and lets a top active player wear it on the Wimbledon court, this fact itself shows that tennis is no longer just a competitive sport. It is becoming a cultural symbol that fashion brands are willing to bet on.

The path of Stan Smith was already tested by Samba three years ago. When Gulden said on the earnings call "this trend is coming", the comeback of Stan Smith was no longer a question of "whether to do it or not". The only remaining thing is to see if it can reach the height that Samba once achieved. The market also needs Adidas to explore the next track after thin-soled sneakers, and the new battlefield needs to be defined as soon as possible.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Lanxiong Sports" (ID: lanxiongsports), written by Wang Shan, authorized for release by 36Kr.