By 1996, adidas was targeting the skate market more directly, running ads in the skate press featuring Josh Kalis. Signing Superstar wearers like Gonz and Quim Cardona, the connection with the culture was made contractual. Oddities cropped up in the press too, like the unusual double-tongued Canvas Super Modified version of the shelltoe from 1997.
The 1997 Originals catalogue, complete with a kick flip in motion on the cover, includes some more ambitious versions of classics — canvas and patent leather Superstars (following up the previous year’s ridge-soled Superstar Ripple remix) are in there alongside the return of the Ultrastar.
As a testament to the Superstar’s versatility, as hip-hop split into two distinct schools-of-thought (both reunited in a post-Kanye world), with the throwback b-boy look representing a certain purity and the shinier, recognisable samples driving music that turned a culture into a billion dollar business, the Superstar was the shoe of choice. Puritans rocked the shell and Jay-Z and Puff Daddy (pre-Diddy) wore the white on white versions too, respecting the cleanliness and, as veterans of the industry who saw the shoe’s original impact with hustlers and MCs alike, understanding its importance. Love it or hate it, but the rap/metal ‘nu-metal’ crossover of the era, fronted by bands like Limp Bizkit — and always acknowledging the path trodden by Run-DMC’s hip-hop and rock experiments — made the Superstar a key element of the scene’s uniform too. Wallet chains were optional.
As the 1990s drew to a close, the Superstar’s presence was strong, offered in the Superstar Metal (never one for the purists) with those gleaming eyelets and a non-metal variation (now with added lace jewels), and upgraded for adidas’s performance category as the mid-priced Superstar Supreme and Millennium Supreme, with a sleeker upper and modified sole unit. For a crossover into a new century, the 1969 look was still getting buckets in high school gyms. Now that’s some serious stamina.