Adidas Originals and Wales Bonner have introduced their Autumn/Winter 2026 collection, inspired by London in the 1980s. Its range includes footwear, sportswear, leather jackets, tailored apparel, and accessories.
This collaboration combines retro athletic design with refined tailoring and premium materials. There, Grace Wales Bonner reinterprets classic Adidas silhouettes through her distinctive approach to cultural luxury. The collection will be available globally from 29 October.
Retro Trainers, Refined Materials
The footwear range updates several adidas designs with textured finishes and distinctive details. The WB Karintha, for example, features a dark brown crocodile-stamped leather upper and brushed gold eyelets.
The WB Gazelle Snake uses a similar green embossed finish on an indoor football-inspired design. The lineup also includes the WB BW Pony, which pairs pony-hair uppers with contrasting lizard-print leather overlays.
Meanwhile, the WB ADIZERO Adios Suede transforms a classic adidas running silhouette into a lifestyle shoe, using a full suede upper and customised three stripes detailing. Prices for the featured footwear range from £170 to £180.
Tailored Sportswear and Leather
The collection features a leather blouson in Wales Bonner’s signature bark colour, detailed with crochet side stripes and tonal embossed branding. This jacket introduces a tailored element to the collection’s sportswear base, combining athletic references with premium construction and materials.
Additional pieces include a double-knit jersey tracksuit, a pinstripe track top with matching shorts, and a collared football shirt with coordinating trousers. Stirrup-detailed track pants, a long-sleeved knit, and T-shirts featuring both brands’ logos complete the clothing range.
Accessories extend the collection’s focus on materials. These include a neoprene bag with crocodile-inspired panelling, a lanyard, and two pairs of socks.
Revisiting 1980s London
The collection’s visual direction is inspired by 1980s London, which Adidas describes as a period of converging cultural influences and emerging new styles. The campaign further explores themes of identity, community, and youthful experimentation.
This inspiration aligns with Wales Bonner’s broader design approach, connecting European heritage and Afro-Atlantic influences. The adidas Originals partnership advances the exchange between sport and style.
The Cultural Roots of Lovers Rock
One of Grace Wales Bonner’s defining collections, Lovers Rock for Autumn/Winter 2020, drew on the style of young Black British and Caribbean communities in 1970s London. The collection was named after the romantic reggae genre that developed through the city’s sound-system culture. It explored how music, migration and community shaped a unique style of dressing.
Wales Bonner drew inspiration from John Goto’s 1977 portraits of young people at Lewisham Youth Centre. His photographs depict a generation blending British tailoring with Caribbean influences.
The resulting collection combined donkey jackets, trench coats, double-breasted blazers, two-tone tweeds and windowpane checks. It also featured tracksuits, crochet sportswear and hand-knitted beanies in Rastafarian flag colours.
Other details included silk shirts printed with reinterpretations of works by British Guyanese artist Frank Bowling. The collection also featured military-inspired outerwear and jackets with Jamaican gold brass buttons.
The contrast between traditional British clothing and Caribbean references defined the collection’s character and reflected Wales Bonner’s broader interest in identity and cultural exchange. This interplay of sportswear, tailoring and cultural history continues to shape her Adidas Originals collaboration.
