Back in the game

14th June 2023

A few years back, it looked like super sports brand Adidas was flirting with veganism after releasing ‘alternative leather’ versions of two of its classic shoe designs, the Continental 80 and the Samba. Now, it seems, they are firmly back in the leather camp.

Adidas was using Mylo, the mushroom-based material that is backed with polyurethane to strengthen it, for the vegan Continentals and Sambas.

Samba

Vegan Continental

Now the company is proudly using leather again because of its “unique performance properties”, or as we might say at RLSD, “because it’s the best material for the job”.

A statement on the Adidas website says:

“Adidas uses leather on account of its unique performance properties in products where it is the optimum material for the purpose. Currently, more than 99% of our leather is audited in accordance with the Leather Working Group (LWG) protocol, and most of our hides are sourced from tanneries with the highest LWG rating (LWG Gold). We believe the existing LWG audit protocol and chain of custody service provide a strong foundation on which to create a robust and scalable traceability solution for leather. For this reason, Adidas is working with the LWG to broaden the scope of the audit to include traceability to the slaughterhouse by 2030.”

Find out more here.