Julian X
Julian: My connection to adidas started in
the late 1970s or early 1980s. I guess it’s when
you’re old enough to realize you’re not inter-
ested in the basic sneakers your parents were
buying you when you didn’t have a lot of say
in what you wore. You start to see older kids
wearing a certain brand, and in England, it
was adidas. They were the premier king of all
sports, especially soccer.
So, you get your first pair, and then team soc-
cer fans would go to mainland Europe and
bring back shoes that you couldn’t get in your
hometown. Back then, when shoes were made
in Austria or Yugoslavia, or West Germany,
or France, many of the models didn’t make
it over the water into the U.K. I know in the
1970s, when adidas started showing up in
the U.S., a lot of the models were either the
French or West German adidas Tobacco, SL72,
or SL76. There were only certain models that
appeared in the States, and only certain mod-
els that appeared in the U.K., but if you went
to West Germany, you’d see a whole range of
shoes that you wouldn’t see anywhere else.
Distribution channels were completely differ-
ent back then. Today, they make a Superstar
86 | Classic Kicks | classickicks.com | Volume 2
and its available worldwide.
I went on a soccer trip to Denmark in 1981,
with a youth club that I was a part of. All I
remember is the older kids saying, “I’m going
to get a pair of trainers that you can’t get over
here.” So, I pretty much spent all my spending
money on a pair of trainers that I couldn’t get
back in England, and they were the Handball
Spezial model. Blue suede, with white stripes,
and a gum sole. I have those in my collection
now. Exactly the same ones I had as a kid.
So, then you would come back to England
and people would be like, “Where did you get
those?!” You could get the Sambas and stuff
like that, but the more specific models just
weren’t available. Then a guy in my hometown,
who worked for adidas, saw the opportunity
and opened a small store in Liverpool, that
was no bigger than a bedroom. He started
driving over to mainland Europe and buying
shoes from Germany, and bringing them back
to Liverpool in his van. He ended up building
a big empire. That’s how it all started. He was
buying stuff you couldn’t get in England. It re-
ally wasn’t until the late 1980s really, that things