The Superstar was adidas’ Most Profitable Shoe in 2015

Despite Kanye West’s wildly popular Yeezy Boost releases in 2015, his namesake collection wasn’t the best-seller for adidas last year. Without question the Yeezy Boost series plays an intricate role in the overall brand strategy, aiding in compound effectiveness across the board. But it was a timeless classic that fared the best for the brand in 2015.

Last year alone, adidas sold 15 million pairs of the Superstar. There are many factors that attribute to this huge spike in sales. Firstly, the shoe was celebrating an anniversary, which is the perfect storm to re-release the shoe in larger numbers. Collaborative releases with celebrities and retailers were also key. And in Pharrell’s case – which accounted for a wealth of releases, including 50 colorways in ever shade imaginable – he almost single-handedly rose the profile of the shoe to a budding, youthful audience, lost on the precedence already set by Run-DMC and a generation past.

This, of course, lends to the popular theory that Pharrell, not Kanye, has been the biggest benefactor for adidas since the two (along with NIGO) joined the brand a couple of years ago. Where sales are concerned in 2015, this holds true. Holistically, though, not so much.

Kanye’s ability to influence the masses and create an exciting environment around the brand is highly tangible where culture is concerned. Sellouts, coveted releases that go for insane amounts on the secondary market make Superstars, and adidas as a whole, well, cool. This, and this alone, is what adidas has been angling towards for years. Kanye, in large part, got them there. Much of the success after the fact is merely a byproduct of his foundation laid.

Accounting for almost $1 in every $10 adidas took in last year according to Bloomberg, the Superstar helped shape a hallmark year for adidas. Surely that will slow in 2016 as the brand will place its primary focus elsewhere, but it definitely goes to show that you can never replace a classic.