17 why tf does brendahashtag have her own adidas sneaker?

no, it’s a valid question if you’ve asked yourself that question. i would ask myself too but i have worked in fashion for a decade if we include my retail years and brands have a few methods in order to infiltrate different markets, from niche to mainstream. vogue germany asked me to write a text about this and it’s on newsstands now! but i thought i’d send you the english translation of my text, tbh i don’t even know if i’m allowed to do that but here we go:

From Herzogenaurach to Hashtag

We’re writing June 30, 2006. I’m somewhere in downtown Hamburg at a public viewing of the World Cup quarterfinal: Germany vs. Argentina. I think we won in the penalty shootout, but I’m not sure. What I definitely remember is that after a bit of begging, my father bought me a national team jersey at one of the stands, with the three stripes on it. I didn’t know much about fashion and brands back then, but I recognized the logo from school and wore the white shirt all summer long.

Summer 2016, 10 years later, I’ve been living in Berlin for a few years and am studying. I’m at the peak of my Berghain phase. Every weekend dancing in black Adidas track pants and a sports bra. Surrounded by people whose names I can hardly remember today. The phone calls home become a little less frequent, my fashion and other life choices at the time were often questionable — but consistent. For a few years now, I’ve been uploading my outfits to Tumblr and sharing my EasyJet trips to Amsterdam and London with my 40,000 Instagram followers.

In April 2024, I call my father from New York. By now I have my dream job as an influencer and journalist. My father is generally proud of everything I tell him about my luxurious jobs in Paris, Berlin, and elsewhere around the world — but now I can really impress him: “I get to design my own Adidas Superstar.”

He didn’t truly believe it until a matte black shoebox with his “Brendidas” arrived in Hamburg a year later.

When the first email exchange about the project began, I thought: “Does this even suit me?” I actually work exclusively in the luxury segment, my followers haven’t seen me in sneakers in years. I haven’t worn my Berghain pants in a long time. But looking back, the three stripes have been with me my whole life.

When you think of German exports to the world, the textile industry probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. You think of BMW, Porsche, Mercedes and co. It often happens that most people I meet greet me in English at first. That might be because of my English-sounding first name, or the way I present myself. Fashion Weeks in Paris, every month in New York, my content is almost exclusively in English. It’s also not very natural for many Germans to boast about their origins. Over the course of my career, I’ve often been advised to present myself as internationally as possible. No Berlin Fashion Weeks until I get the big LVMH invitations in Paris. Only wear Parisian labels. Write articles only for English-language titles. The best deals await in the US.

On my personal moodboard for dream collaborations, there’s a long list of luxury labels. That a giant like Adidas would even notice me or have me on their radar for projects — I would never have expected that. But boasting is part of the job; my profession requires a healthy (sometimes unhealthy) amount of self-promotion. And a global brand like Adidas needs exactly that year after year to take place and be perceived on the world stage: people who present themselves.

For a brand of this size, there are probably a dozen subcategories of collaborations — each communications, catalyst, community, marketing, branding, and talent team has different terms and definitions.

It starts local. You work with talents, artists, creatives who occupy their own niche. Whose followers move in subcultures where commercial brands are often not even considered. This requires design and curation, storytelling, to authentically bring Adidas into play — which happens through collaborations. These collaborations don’t go far beyond the niche cosmos, but that’s not the point. It’s about coolness, and about reaching target groups that are difficult to access through traditional advertising or marketing. The Brendahashtag target group, for example, which actually only buys luxury or secondhand, hangs out in galleries, and reads Substack. An audience that wants special releases — limited Rick Owens x Birkenstocks, Maison Margiela x Louboutins, and Brendidas.

We expand and want to make a bigger splash, reach international news. Adidas can do that with a Gucci collaboration, or with a young designer like Grace Wales Bonner. This way the brand reaches luxury customers and the art world. On release dates, lines form in front of the stores, the products sell out on the first day, hype and desire are generated among consumers.

Then comes a brand with the hard hitters. Superstars are now used for global out-of-home, TV, print and social media campaigns.

What’s the point of all this? How does a brand like Adidas find someone like me, Brenda Hashtag? It’s often about so-called “cultural currency.” A form of credibility that isn’t created through advertising, but through relationships with culturally relevant people. The goal isn’t to sell shoes. Adidas collaborates with a person — me — who has meaning in her community, who creates references, who sets the tone for what’s cool and what’s not. I curate more than I consume. We live in a time where brands no longer just sell products, but belonging.

Of course, that also has huge trade-off value. Adidas gives me visibility and cultural anchoring; no one can take my Brendidas sneaker away from me. It’s a collector’s item, a time capsule — even if I were to slip into irrelevance. Instead of just being a brand ambassador, I became the co-author of a wearable product.

And so, after years of distancing myself from the German fashion market to get closer to my international It-Girl dream, I unexpectedly became a small part of the story of one of the most iconic German brands.

That’s what I’d like to tell eleven-year-old Brenda, impatiently standing with her father at the jersey stand at the public viewing somewhere in Hamburg.

THE VOGUE GERMANY JULY/AUGUST ISSUE IS NOW ON NEWSSTANDS