Supercolor

Superstars used to be white. That was the shoe—white with the three stripes, everyone had them, everyone wore them. Then Pharrell Williams and adidas released the Supercolor Pack, which was fifty Superstars in fifty different colors. A rainbow, basically. Each one the exact same shoe, just in a different color.

The idea was that you got to pick. Not be given the white one because that’s what Superstars were, but actually choose the version you wanted to wear. Pharrell said something about it being equality through diversity, everyone different but all part of the same thing. It’s the kind of thing that could sound corny if it wasn’t true, and I think he meant it.

I’m not someone who gets precious about sneakers. But there was something appealing about the moment when a uniform suddenly became a choice. The white Superstar works—it’s neutral, it matches everything, it’s what everyone else is wearing. But what if you just didn’t want white?

The pink one was the one I wanted. That bright, almost aggressive pink. Not apologetic. Just pink.

I never really tracked whether the Supercolor Pack mattered after it dropped, whether people felt genuinely liberated by having options or whether it was just a nice collaboration that faded. What stuck with me was that moment of feeling like something opened up, like you could suddenly choose. The shoes themselves were secondary to what they represented. The pink one especially—I remember that pink.