Rishi Sunak seen wearing Sambas


The Adidas Sambas are a pair which have been around for 7 decades, with their occasional moments such as the 70s with the UK football culture, in the 90s with the skate scene but more or less hugging shelves than not, apart from the select few who took to their sambas regardless of culture. This changed in the 2020s with Adidas’s collaboration with Grace Wales Bonner, where they added crocheted detailing to the sneakers, adding onto the traditional rounded toes and Adidas’s iconic three stripes, resembling the earlier football shoe culture. With this collaboration, Sambas were catching more and more eyes on it. By the end 2021, Sambas were on fashion moodboards and tiktok fringes, with social media picking up the Sambas, with the influencers and fashionistas styling them. At this point, #adidassambas had 147 million views on them. The hype for Sambas was only bolstered further with celebrities such as Frank Ocean, A$AP Rocky and Bella Hadid styling the shoes. This pushed for wide demand for the shoes, based on stans looking for the shoes their favourite celebrities are wearing, viewers looking to wear what’s new and hot and other reasons. With this push, the colourways of Sambas that were being produced by Adidas were out-supplying the demand for the shoes and not-so-slowly oversaturating the market, where every father, mother, brother and even grandma were rocking them. What sort of hit the nail on the coffin for the pairs being deemed “washed out” was when UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak was seen wearing them during an interview, with an navy trouser and ironed white shirt with white sambas with black stripes, looking like a millenial trying their hardest to stay up with the times. By the end of 2024, the reign of terror of the Sambas had ended with the shoes hugging shelves once again and corners in closets, waiting for their eventual rise, yet again.

Sambas Wales Bonner