Superstar? Masha Popova's adidas Sneaker Is a Superstud (EXCLUSIVE)
Masha Popova sees your SL72s, your reborn basketball shoes, your Stan Smith revival and she raises you a classic: the adidas Superstar.
Arguably adidas' first viral shoe — thank you, RUN DMC — the Superstar isn't currently quite as huge as some of its recently revived contemporaries but it ain't going anywhere. adidas is still retooling it to this day.
But what Popova had in mind for her debut adidas collaboration goes far beyond "retooling."
"The idea of ageing is really central to my practice; I wanted to create a shoe that would fade and change with time in the same way," Popova tells Highsnobiety. "It was important that the shoes become a natural extension of the rest of the collection."
Handmade for the Ukraine-born, UK-based designer's Spring/Summer 2025 runway show, the Masha Popova adidas Superstar is outrageously riveted with crushed brass studs. More like Superstud.
Each shoe is further lacquered in five layers of "specialized" paint that, like the studs and leather that makes up the shoes' uppers, will wear down in a manner that evokes Popova's signature fabric.
"Denim... was the starting point," she says. "I’m always really inspired by the idea of erosion and wear and tear. Paint chipping off and metal rusting away creates a kind of ‘shimmer’ of colours and texture that I really love. It’s always about a balance of glamour and grit."
Deep-treated jeans are a guiding star of Popova's heavily Y2K-flavored practice, itself plenty symbolic of both glamour and grit (famous fans include PinkPantheress, Tinashe, and Dua Lipa. But, when we're talking about Popova's take on jeans, we ain't talking about workwear.
When Popova's talkin' denim, she's talkin' low-rise, loose leg, and aggressively artful, statement trousers as gloriously garish as anything Xtina ever wore as a Genie in a Bottle, down to the shoes.
“Superstars [are] massively nostalgic for me," says Popova. "An integral part of pop culture! It’s an iconic shoe. Every musician I used to look up to had a pair… and now, all the Masha girls I love to dress are wearing them again."
Get those Masha girls some Masha Superstars.
