A Rare Look At The adidas Shoe Kanye West Designed A Decade Ago

It took nearly a decade for adidas to convince Kanye West to return to the fold and finally design that collaborative sneaker under the adidas Originals imprint as initially planned. That’s right. Before any of Kanye’s designs with Nike, Yeezy was supposed to design a tennis shoe with the three stripe’s lifestyle imprint. Ben Pruess, once the global director of adidas Originals, shared a rare glimpse at what Kanye was cooking up with adidas dating back to 2006 on his Instagram. What resulted from the brief collaborative process was a reworked adidas Rod Laver Vintage tennis shoe complete with the early-era College Dropout bear logo on the tongue. Check out a better look at this ultra-rare sample below and let us know if you’re feeling this design, or would prefer today’s adidas Yeezy pairs by taking your thoughts to the comments section.

@hypebeast (since you posted a fake version this week- here is the real version) @mrsnob @wex1200 @gary.aspden @instabeast @therachelmuscat @paulloving – #tbt long before the Yeezy- the Kanye 1 – #oneofone #settingtherecordstraight #yeezy – 100% team UA but always love the family and proud of the work.

A photo posted by @benpruess on Apr 14, 2016 at 3:36am PDT

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