adidas Adilette

Affectionately dubbed by the Süddeutsche as "the guilty pleasure flip-flop," the Adilette was invented by Adi Dassler in 1963 for a reason. He owed it to athletes who wanted a shoe they could wear in the shower after changing. Thus, Dassler created the slide made of blue rubber with a contoured footbed and padded strap. Side suction cups provided the necessary grip, along with the iconic three white stripes. At the time, Dassler could not have imagined that the Adidas slide would quickly leave the sacred spaces of Olympians and conquer the sauna landscapes of ordinary citizens. It made its way to camping sites, the streets of small German towns, and eventually to the sidewalk in front of the "Seiler" drinking hall in Kohlhaus, Fulda. The Adilette became intertwined with us Germans and tarnished our reputation. It led our neighbors to believe that we are perpetually on vacation, only getting off the couch to grab chips. However, it is now 2011, and we believe that it has mastered the style crisis.