Feature: Lotta Volkova for adidas Originals
Give a stylist the adidas archive and most would reach for terrace culture or hip hop. Volkova went to the Olympics — or something that looks a great deal like a 1970s national team turning up for the heats.
Who she is
Volkova is a stylist rather than a designer, and she's one of the few whose name travels beyond the industry. Her work with Vetements is what most people know her for — she was central to how that label looked and, more to the point, how it made everyone else look for several years afterwards.
Her register is hard to pin down: half experimental, half completely practical, and usually with something in it that shouldn't work.
What she did with the archive
The collection takes competitive sport as its subject. Full tracksuits in blue with contrast piping. A volleyball vest with a number across the chest, worn with mint green track pants. Swimwear in bright single colours. Racket in hand.
None of it is styled as sportswear in the modern sense — nothing technical-looking, nothing performance-coded. It reads as team kit from a period when team kit was just clothing that happened to be issued to athletes, and it's the better for it.
The campaign was shot flat against a pink grid, which sounds like a small thing and isn't. The whole collection is laid out like a chart.
One honest note
This came out in 2020 and we sold through it. If you're here looking for a piece, resale is where it is now.
What we currently stock is in our adidas collection.