The Adidas City Cup is an iconic shoe retooled specifically for skateboarding. The design brief was to create a skate shoe that infuses the rich heritage of retro sports inherent in the Adidas brand with modern design techniques. Looking at the shoe, we can see the subtle way in which this has been achieved.
Take the Adidas Montreal, you can see here the usage of the rubber welded heel cup as inspiration for the City Cup‘s heel stabilising heel cup. Then there is the sole unit, which shares similarities with the classic Powerphase. However, it is never to blatantly lift a feature from another shoe, more so to take subtle details and design cues, which have resulted in a truly unique looking skateboard shoe, that is both on point trend-wise, but also absolutely and completely a functional fit for the demands of the modern skateboarder. The City Cup looks incredible and performs just as well. Adidas is calling it “the sneaker for the skater”, which is pretty on point!