The Closet Will Need to Expand Again

Sneakers are the one category where I’ve completely stopped pretending I’m being rational. I could buy a new pair every month—I have, in fact, bought a new pair nearly every month for the better part of a decade—and each time there’s a very clean logic to it. This one fills a gap in the rotation. This one is a colorway I’ve been waiting on. This one was just sitting there and the price was right. The closet tells a different story.

Adidas Originals has five new colorways of the Sleek out: Pink/Red, White/Yellow, White/Pink, pastel blue, and black leather. Each is built from the same tennis-archive silhouette but individualized through zippers, velcro, and lace configurations that turn one shape into five distinct moods. Perforated leather upper, three-stripe branding, trefoil logo window, colored rubber sole. Clean and considered. They look better in person. They always do.

The accompanying Bellista collection was shot by photographer Marlen Stahlhuth in Gambia, which gives the whole campaign a light and a color temperature that product photography usually fails to manufacture. You believe the shoes more when they’re not floating on a white background. That part, at least, they got exactly right.