Adidas has spent the past few decades always on the cutting edge of hot footwear, but now they’re stirring some controversy with their new JS Roundhouse Mids, which some critics have claimed feature “slave shackles.”
The sneaker company’s gray, purple, and black JS Roundhouse Mids feature chains, which some say resemble a slave’s shackle. A post on Indie Wire lambastes Adidas for this new sneaker saying, “I doubt this is what Run DMC envisioned when they rapped about their 50 pairs of Adidas way back when. I’m trying to picture guys and gals strutting down the street with these on. I’m sure a dissertation could probably be written about these, given the group that would most likely be seen wearing these.
If you jump over to Adidas’s Facebook page they say that these kicks are for when you, “Got a sneaker game so hot you lock your kicks to your ankles”.
Do you think it even crossed Adidas’s minds that this sort of controversy would spread like wildfire? If new products are hinged upon creativity and to some degree, a bit of a gimmick at times, then wouldn’t this fit the description? I can see some 14-year-old kid making a crack about needing his sneakers chained to his feet. It almost makes sense to me that Adidas would come up with this.
As for the whole slave reference, I disagree completely. Sometimes a pair of sneakers is a pair of sneakers, just like a song is just a song. Do we need to live in a world where we look for and then react to hidden meanings in everything?
Do you think Adidas intended to do anything other than create a new pair of kicks? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!