In the world of sneakers, popularity is often directly correlated with novelty and rarity. The ruthless logic of hype dictates that the more difficult a sneaker is to obtain, the more desirable it becomes. This is why it is particularly surprising that this summer has been marked by a mass-market, unassuming sneaker developed over 70 years ago: the Adidas Samba. In a men’s fashion landscape torn apart by micro-trends that are flash-in-the-pan and TikTok-created memes, the Samba trend is pleasantly real and surprisingly universal. Let me give you an example from the beginning of the summer when I met up with half a dozen friends at a bar in downtown New York after work and started counting: there were four pairs of Samba under the table, including my worn-out white pair, bought for about $75 last year. Most of the people sitting at that table work in the fashion world, like me, but looking down at our feet, we realized we had not anticipated a trend but rather, arrived late. Because by the beginning of summer, the Sambas were already everywhere: on the feet of Soho tourists wearing them instead of clunky walking shoes, but also on Midtown bankers who seemed to have ditched their Allbirds. In those early days of the season, the Sambas seemed to be as much a part of the city’s fabric as the Nike Air Force 1. And, perhaps even more surprisingly, they represented a rare moment of consensus: we all agreed, more or less, on what a cool shoe should look like.

As we write, Adidas had sold out many sizes of the standard Samba model, and this surge in demand has led to astonishing sales for StockX in recent weeks. In mid-August, StockX sold a pair of white base Samba OGs that normally cost around $100 for $513, roughly the price of a sneaker resulting from a rare Air Jordan collaboration, or a mass-produced model also available on Zappos. (Collaborations with the Samba have also seen an upward trend on StockX, with a special edition of the Samba made with the Los Angeles Football Club having an average markup of 200% since January). Before reaching the peak of our collective style consciousness, the Samba has come a long way. Introduced in the 1950s by Adidas founder Adi Dassler, the original Samba more closely resembled a hiking boot than the low-top sneaker we know today. Dassler’s significant innovation was the rubber sole, developed to help soccer players maintain traction on icy fields. Over time, the Samba slimmed down and became a favorite among indoor soccer players and, in the ’90s, its clean silhouette and distinctive brown sole were making waves in the proto-streetwear scene. In the UK, the Samba took off among soccer-loving Britpop fans (credit for its mainstreaming goes to the Oasis, who generally preferred the similar model, the Gazelle), and in the US, skateboarders in Southern California found it to be an ideal skate shoe. The new generation of Samba fans has been drawn to this rich, nostalgia-laden past. Designer Ian Bradley, for example, initially recognized the sneaker’s roots in the Jamaican reggae scene obsessed with soccer. “To me, it has a Bob Marley flavor,” said Bradley, who has owned a pair since 2004 in his footwear collection. Over the years, he has realized that the understated Samba elicits a particularly strong, even emotional response in others. “Wearing the shoe, especially when it’s not trendy, is that people remember it. They say: ‘Oh, I forgot, I used to have a pair for soccer practice.’ It’s more of a rediscovery than just a reaction to a trend,” says Bradley. One of the people Bradley talks about is Jonah Hill, who in 2020 designed his own pair of Samba for Adidas. “I’ve been wearing Sambas since I was 11 or so: they’ve always been my favorite shoes,” he told AllinReplica at the time. I wore them when I was into soccer, at nine or ten years old, and then for skateboarding.” Hill, who has become a style icon for young men approaching men’s fashion in recent years, found that the Samba fits his taste perfectly. “Its look continues to hit me,” Hill said. “These sneakers go great with shorts and pants. They’re just a nice shoe that’s not too techy or futuristic.”

For 24-year-old Tanner Dean, the Samba represents a sort of Holy Grail of men’s fashion. Dean is not at all a sneaker enthusiast: when he moved to New York from Oregon several years ago, his footwear included boots, loafers, and sneakers. Then, in 2020, Adidas Originals collaborated with one of the fashion world’s rising stars, Grace Wales Bonner, for a line of Sambas with delicate crochet details. If the Samba had already started gaining traction, at that moment it proved to be truly ready for takeoff. “For a while I’ve been focusing on smaller brands like Wales Bonner, so I was reintroduced to the Samba for fashion-related reasons rather than functional ones,” says Dean, who missed out on a coveted pair of brown shoes from the collaboration that now sell for hundreds of dollars in the secondary market. When another pair was released at the beginning of the summer, Dean jumped on a pair in white and green suede. “It’s versatile, but it’s also a recognizable silhouette for many people,” says Dean. “It’s literally the shoe you can’t stop thinking about.”