Apr 12: When Adidas and Yohji Yamamoto first hooked up to create a series of sneakers, the deal was seen by some as little more than a novel curiosity. Three years later, their joint venture, now dubbed Y-3, is the most coveted collaboration between a major international sports label and a world-class designer.
Though they are little known in fashion nomenclature, Hermann Deininger and Michael Michalsky have already earned their own footnote in style history. As the Adidas duo behind the Y-3 project, they oversee an unprecedented link between Europe's greatest sports label and a Japanese fashion icon, a project that attracts respect and envy in equal measures.

Yamamoto is hardly a household name. But in the world of avant-garde style, he's treated like royalty, the fashion world's equivalent of Frederico Fellini, Tricky or Frank Gehry, a consistently great performer with a devoted following and the unalloyed respect of his peers.
The alliance debuted in 2000, when Yamamoto presented just five looks in a show in a boxing ring underneath Paris' Bercy Stadium. From the get-go, the pieces bore the designer's trademark scratchy signature and the brand's classic three stripes. They were an instant hit - snapped up by Bloomingdale's, covered in Vogue and sold out in key boutiques -- even though, at $700 a pair, the sneakers were several times Adidas' traditional price point.
"They were high-tech and off-the-ground, and instantly connected with people," smiles Michalsky, Adidas' Global Creative Director, who turned down Yamamoto's initial request to use Adidas' sacred Stan Smith tennis shoes. "I wanted high-tech, futurist and performance related," he stresses.
Yamamoto's second season working with Adidas led to decorative embroidered Chinese fabrics, low to the ground silhouettes and even bigger hits. Continually experimenting, the designer played with kimono prints, whipped up boxing boots with leather "flames" and developed silk stain tongues. By March 2001, Yohji was presenting those brilliant boxing boots, flat-footed blue tennis shoes and black 'n' white brothel creepers. All were hugely copied, yet no fake ever matched the original.
Adidas had been creeping into fashion before hooking up with Yamamoto though. Egged on by Michalsky, a self-confessed "fashion victim," Adidas' first fashion project was with Kostas Murkudis to create 100 Adidas birthday shoes. It even developed a limited series of sneakers as a "personal favor" for Stella McCartney in the plant's "baby factory" in Scheinfeld, Germany. "All of them were in vegan materials," explains Michalsky, over lunch with Deininger and FWD.
"Maybe that inspired Yohji to call," smiles Deininger, head of global business development at Adidas, recalling that it was the designer who phoned Adidas, and not the other way around.
Adds Michalsky, "our board didn't even know who Yohji was!"
But after selling 50,000 pairs of Yamamoto-designed sneakers, the board was impressed. "We immediately generated a quite nice revenue. Adidas had always been looking for more and more crossover between fashion and industry, looking to be more relevant," explains Deininger. "So we tested the market and realized that we could make something special at accessible prices. At that point we went for a full collaboration."
As a result, Adidas hitched their wagons to Yohji and, in a major leap, last summer created a brand new third division, Sports Style, naming Yamamoto its creative director. The goal? The new collaboration will represent five percent of total Adidas volume - a whopping $350 million - and a huge sum considering that annual sales in Yamamoto's own house have yet to exceed $100 million.

Brands like Prada, Ralph Lauren, Jil Sander, Hermes and Louis Vuitton have all tried their hand at golf shoes, bowling shoes, and cool interpretations of the trusty old tennis shoe in leathers and suedes. But nobody had made this sort of commitment to blending sport and fashion, especially not with Adidas' massive revenues, which dwarfs any designer fashion house. Ranked second to Nike in terms of global revenue, Adidas is Europe's pre-eminent sports brand with net sales of $7 billion last year and profits of $245 million, making it one of the most profitable firms on the Frankfurt stock market.
For Michalsky and Deininger, teaming up with Yohji was a huge development.
"When I was a student I went on a sort of pilgrimage to London. It changed my life," says Michalsky, who later graduated from the London College of Fashion before doing stints as Levis' head of design and director of apparel in Germany. "I've loved Yohji's fashion for years. He's not the sort of designer who cares if skirts are long or short, and Adidas is not a brand that chases after trends, so maybe deep down we are not so different," argues Michalsky.
Yohji Yamamoto debuted the full collection in October, tagged Y-3, with a fantastic presentation at the slick Charlety stadium in southern Paris.
Y-3's most recent show staged in the Bastille included massive aerial images of endless white mountains and a huge Perspex and neon Y-3 logo, inside of which snow fell. German model icon Nadja Auermann made her first catwalk turn in Paris in three years - her icy beauty ideal for this winter moment.
What worked so well in this collection were the slim nylon bombers with sergeants' stripes and the Y-3 logo on the upper arm, snug parkas, excellent burgundy nylon cargo pants and sailor duffel coats. Yamamoto's use of the Adidas logo as detailing, trim and ironic triple zips was cleverly restrained -- you got the logo but didn't feel overpowered by it.
"It was an unbelievable show in terms of product and imagery. It would have been ridiculous to have gilded chairs and a raised catwalk," argues Michalsky.
Major stores clamored for the collection and this fall Y-3 will open in six Saks doors, Holt Renfrew in Canada and Isetan in Japan.
It hasn't all been smooth sailing, though. Adidas staffers grumbled when Yohji executives began re-formatting the styling of models at the label's January launch in Barneys. The folks at Yamamoto regaled FWD with complaints about Adidas honchos insisting on number seating at the Bastille show. In the end there wasn't. But considering it's a partnership between two companies from Germany and Japan, two cultures not exactly famous for their flexibility, the level of understanding has been impressive.
Bureau Report