“For this collection, I was interested in running traditions in Ethiopia and Kenya,” Grace Wales Bonner tells Vogue of the inspiration behind her latest collaboration with Adidas Originals. “More specifically: the tranquility of the long-distance runner and how that might relate to my own artistic approach.”
Building on the research of her spring/summer 2024 show Marathon, the new collection, entitled The Rift Valley Runners, is named after the high-altitude home of champion athletes in Iten, Kenya, and explores “resilience, endurance and dedication”. “Since I was thinking about passages through the outdoors I was naturally drawn to technical clothing, fluorescence, clothes you can move in,” she says, adding that the vivid colour palette and focus on running silhouettes are the main points of difference in comparison to previous drops.
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Striking photographs captured by Viviane Sassen – and a film by Steven Traylor – feature runners Emmanuel Wanyonyi, Bethwel Yegon, Nelly Chepchirchir, Charles Simotwo, Cornelius Kemboi and Barselius Kipyego, wearing Wales Bonner’s new proposal for spring/summer. Archival sports looks are projected through a contemporary lens: track separates are realised in electric blue and bright red, and yellow and green, loose-fitting shorts are emblazoned with expressive checked and houndstooth patterns, while running singlets are rendered in supple knitted fabrications. As has been the case with past collaborations, Adidas’s signature three stripes are emblazoned across multiple pieces in the capsule.
The campaign shoot emits a palpable energy. Sassen, Traylor and the stellar cast offer a sense of movement with foiled blankets – the kind that runners are swaddled in after a long-distance race – lunging poses and, naturally, running.
In place of running shoes, however, the athletes debut Wales Bonner’s new spring/summer 2024 trainers, including the archive SL76 silhouette, which is reinterpreted in a light blue and black, and yellow and black, colourways – the latter being a riff on the replica Adidas Neftegnas (in which Haile Gebrselassie won the Berlin Marathon in 2008), that walked her Paris runway last June. There are also two fresh takes on the Samba, in off-white and grey with blue stripes, and the Samba Millennium, in brown leather with a blue pony-hair heel.
Set your alarms – the collection launches globally on 21 May at Walesbonner.com, Adidas.co.uk and at selected retailers.
