adidas’ Chocolate Samba Is a Rather Good Seasonal Indulgence
The Samba has spent the past few years being absolutely everywhere, so credit to adidas for finding another way to make us look twice.
The Samba LT W comes with an exaggerated fold-over tongue that takes up a frankly unreasonable amount of real estate across the top of the shoe. Subtlety clearly wasn't the brief.
The colorway helps its case, too. A deep coffee brown makes this a pretty ideal winter Samba, especially when the usual black-and-white rotation starts feeling a little tired. Pale blue Three Stripes cut through the brown, adding just enough contrast without turning the whole thing into a science project.
Of course, the tongue is what you're really here for. Borrowed from old-school soccer cleats, it gives the familiar Samba shape a slightly ridiculous proportion that somehow works. It's a lot of tongue for a relatively small shoe, but we're not about to complain when adidas gives us something other than another pair of white leather sneakers.
And while the Samba LT W isn't exactly reinventing anything, it doesn't need to. The brown is good, the blue works, and the tongue has enough personality to carry the whole operation.
For a sneaker that's been done to death, that's not a bad result.
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