Beyoncé and Bad Bunny are not the only Grammy winners releasing an Adidas collaboration this month.
“Happy” hitmaker Pharrell Williams joins them next week with the debut of his all-new sneaker silhouette, the Humanrace Sičhona.
The shoe—”designed to capture the feeling of being connected to the earth beneath you”—borrows its name, Sičhona, from the Indigenous phrase for “connecting to the earth.” Made using Adidas’ seamless Futurenatural technology, the Humanrace Sičhona allows the foot to function freely by removing elements that would otherwise be restrictive, the company said.
“I chased the experience I remember feeling as a kid when I walked barefoot on grass, sand and rocks,” Williams said in a statement. “Feeling the texture, the temperature, the moisture… that primal sense of freedom was a North Star objective with this project.”
The Humanrace Sičhona sneaker also bears a distinctive computer-generated outsole with a digitally printed Humanrace typographic pattern, Humanrace branding on the lateral upper and co-branded tongue-tabs and sockliners. It will launch in a blue colorway with coral accents and aqua details.
The shoe, described by Adidas as “a call to the world to experience and learn more about the Dakota land and its people,” will launch alongside a campaign, “I am Dakota, We are Dakota,” shot by an Indigenous photographer, creatively directed by an Indigenous visual storyteller and educator and starring a cast made up entirely of members of the Dakota tribe. To celebrate the launch, Adidas and Williams are also helping to fund a 10kW solar array training and demonstration project for the youth of Standing Rock.
The first iteration of the Humanrace Sičhona will drop globally Aug. 27 via Adidas’ Confirmed app, Williams’ Humanrace website and select retailers.
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The shoe will arrive 10 days after the debut of Bad Bunny’s latest Adidas collab. Inspired by the Puerto Rican cultural icon’s experience growing up and going to school, the Bad Bunny Forum – Back to School features a triple black leather upper, matched with suede overlays and buckle fastening. The sneaker dropped Tuesday on Confirmed, Adidas’ website in regions without Confirmed and at select retailers.
Beyoncé’s streetwear label Ivy Park will release its own collaboration with Adidas—its fourth so far—Thursday. The rodeo-themed collection offers dark-wash denim looks—including on one of the lineup’s five footwear styles. Also included in the launch will be Adidas and Ivy Park’s first children’s collection together, a capsule line with 16 apparel styles, from sizes 2T-XL.
Adidas collaborates with elite runners
Amid this string of Top 40 team-ups, Adidas also plans to drop a duo of shoes with some of its more traditional collaborators—athletes.
Next Tuesday, the footwear company will release two specially designed styles with the running group Tinman Elite. Both the Tinman Elite Adizero Boston 10 and Tinman Elite Adizero XCS Spike will feature the squad’s signature axe logo on the medial side of the shoe and metallic gold touches. The former, a distance running shoe, will retain the core elements of a standard Adizero Boston 10 sneaker—the Lightstrike Pro midsole foam, Energy Rods, soft upper and rubber outsole. The latter, a unisex cross-country running spike, will feature a “featherlight” textile upper, a locked-down fit and a lightweight midsole.
“As a team, we’re here to bridge the gap between professional runners and the community in pursuit of pushing the sport of running forward altogether,” Sam Parsons, Tinman Elite’s creative director, said in a statement. “If this shoe can inspire even just one person to get out the door and enjoy the self-growth one can find in running, then that’s all I could ever ask for—that’s what we’re all here to do as a team.”
The Tinman Elite Collection will hit Adidas and Tinman Elite’s websites Aug. 24.