Project-X puts sole into Adidas store

Adidas’s mounting interest in the retail sector has taken another turn with the low-key introduction of a one-off concept store in London’s Soho, designed by Project-X.

The Adidas Originals store is intended to showcase the heritage of the brand, while the recently opened outlet in Covent Garden focuses on the style end of the Adidas range.

The promised Adidas Performance flagship store on Oxford Street is expected to launch within months and will address the mainstream market in direct competition with the nearby Niketown store.

Adidas Originals functions both as a high-end shoe store and a gallery that showcases the history of the brand.

‘Essentially, it is capturing the spirit of Adidas’s sporting heritage,’ explains James Wilson, head of business development at Project-X, which worked on the store in partnership with sister company Blyth Wyatt Budd, an architectural and project management practice.

The first in-store exhibition, Olympic Archive 1928-1992, runs throughout the Athens Olympics and features shoes originally worn by legendary Olympians including Jesse Owens and Muhammad Ali.

‘The design of the store is relatively straightforward and clean, but it also has running tracks around the edge and show cases suspended from the ceiling,’ adds Wilson.

The Adidas brand was created in 1948 by Adi Dassler, who, with his brother Rudolf, had been making sports shoes in the German town of Herzogenaurach for almost 30 years. The Gebrüder Dassler company splintered after World War II, with Adi Dassler forming Adidas and Rudolf founding Puma.