When Rick Owens announced he was ending his partnership with Adidas in 2017, it felt like the end of an era. The collaboration began four years ago and quickly became one of the most influential designer-sportswear linkups.
Long before luxury brands were lining up to team up with sneaker giants, Owens showed what was possible when a creative mastermind was given the freedom to create something entirely new. Instead of reimagining old classics, they built their own silhouettes from the ground up, from the beefy Mastodon to the sci-fi-coded Tech Runner.
So when those unmistakable Three Stripes appeared on the runway at Rick Owens’ Spring-Summer 2027 show in Paris yesterday, the reaction was immediate. As soon as the first glimpse emerged from the scorching Palace de Tokyo, screams could be heard from the audience. No one expected this. But after a full decade, Rick Owens and Adidas were indeed back – and in typical Rick fashion, the reunion was anything but cool.
Adidas
The first look featured a puffy track jacket and matching shorts that were filled with air. Made using Adidas’ ClimaCool technology, each piece featured built-in fans that inflated the pieces while cooling the wearer. Along with an ice vest (originally developed to help footballers cope with the rising temperatures of the 2026 World Cup), Owens described the system as a “personal air conditioning system”. Bearing in mind that the French capital was moving 100 degrees, the models were probably the most comfortable people at Fashion Week.
The collection also nods to Japan’s fan jackets, which have become a common sight among construction workers during the country’s intensely humid summers. “Fan jackets have battery-powered aircon systems to keep workers cool in summer,” author Ashley Ogawa Clark says gq. “It’s less about toughness or safety and more about agility and adaptation.” Whether Owens intentionally referenced them or not, the similarities were hard to ignore.
And yes, the sneakers looked absolutely insane. While Adidas hasn’t confirmed whether or not the archival Rick Owens models will return, the runway made one thing very clear: there will be no shortage of new designs. An adiZero Adios Pro appeared with an Evo Lightstrike Pro midsole that was nearly double (or triple) the normal size, while another model combined the brand’s SpringBlade cushioning system with a waterproof gaiter that extended almost to the calf. OG fans will remember Owens’ experimentation with the Springblade in the early days. And because this is the work of fashion’s Prince of Darkness, everything came in a black and white color palette.
