Adidas’ three stripes encapsulate the brand's image, crawling up people’s legs, down their shoes, across hats. These stripes, however, were not always the brand’s uniform—andthe brand was not always named “Adidas.” The company’s history has recently come into question following the outrage against Kanye West’s antisemitic remarks. As other brands promptly ceased contracts with him, Adidas dragged their feet. In light of the brand’s entangled history with the Nazi Party, their failure to quickly respond suggests a pattern of performative activism.
In 1924, brothers Adolf and Rudolf Dassler founded their own shoe factory in Herzogenaurach, Germany. Innovating spiked shoes for people to run on uneven terrain, the brothers rapidly became famous throughout their town. Desiring even more capital, the brothers bought into Hitler’s economic promises of booming wealth. In 1933, the Dassler brothers formally joined the Nazi Party, hoping the value of their company would rise parallel to Hitler’s power throughout Germany.
The Nazis embraced sports as a way to propel them into desired domination, so they saw the Dassler brothers as a medium to secure such efforts. Hitler enforced the athletic training of his soldiers to promote the ultimate form of endurance. The Dassler Shoe Factory was a convenient way to promote Nazi athleticism through materialism. As Nazis rose in power so did the Dassler Shoe Factory, and the Dassler brother dream of expanding into the global market began to seem more attainable than ever.
The brothers were finally able to break into the global purview when they supplied shoes for German athletes in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Hitler capitalized on the games as a way to demonstrate Aryan supremacy through physical fitness, and the Dassler shoes became a subset of this ideal person whom Hitler envisioned.
Knowing that their ties to the Nazi Party were distasteful to a myriad of potential customers, the Dassler brothers attempted to expand their market by promoting their shoes on Jesse Owens, who wore them at the 1936 games. By appealing to those who supported Jesse Owens– a pathbreaking Black athlete– the Dassler brothers attempted to counter balance their Nazi values and appeal to everyone, regardless of their values. In essence, this was their first exhibition of performative activism. The brothers did not support Owens for the sake of his own well-being and stance in the global eye. Rather, they wanted to seem politically neutral and appealing to eclectic people, hoping that seeming political neutrality would allow them to market to everyone, not just Nazi sympathizers. However, they were certainly political men in nature, partaking in Nazi affairs and even working for the party on the frontlines. Rudolf was the more dedicated Nazi of the two brothers, but they both pridefully carried Nazi affiliation cards with them and signed their letters off with “Heil Hitler.” There is no denying that they were political. As the Nazis gained control over vast European lands, the Dassler brothers converted their shoe factory into a munition factory. They began to not only support the Nazis through supplying shoes and through personal affiliations but through weaponry, too.
After the war, Rudolf was arrested and consequently imprisoned for his role on the frontlines. Adolf, on the contrary, was able to convince people that he was not affiliated with the party, allowing him to avoid collateral damage of his affiliation; he claimed that he persisted in purchasing leather goods from Jewish people and thus could not have been a Nazi. Their difference in post-war consequences led the brothers to an extreme falling out in 1949, which inspired them to develop companies of their own. Adolf created Adidas and Rudolf founded Puma.
Trying to separate themselves from their Nazi-related history, Adidas asserts that they were not officially founded until after the war. However, there is no denying that Adolf was extremely interlaced with the Nazi party and certainly carried prejuiced, harmful beliefs. In a seeming attempt to prove their Jewish support and disconnection from any Nazi beliefs, Adidas had Jewish American Olympian Mark Spitz carry a pair of shoes onto the podium during metal ceremony in 1972. Displaying their products on a Jewish person signals that the company is supportive of the Jewish community. This is a facade, however. Their continued public display of relationships with Jewish people is a performative way to appeal to a broad audience, ensuring that they gain monetary support from as many customers as possible.
If Adidas was truly supportive of the Jewish community, they would not have taken six days to make a decision about their contract with West. Adidas has always prioritized their monetary value, and Kanye West was a significant asset for them. It is hard to decipher whether they finally cut ties with Kanye West because of genuine beliefs against hate speech or because their stock was beginning to deteriorate in value. It is likely though, based on their history of performative activism, that they cared more for their public image and stock than they did for the Jewish community and those directly impacted by West’s words.
Aside from his recent antisemetic remarks, West has a complex history with pursuing harmful agendas. All while spreading conspiracies about the death of George Floyd, publicly threatening the life of ex-wife Kim Kardashian’s then-boyfriend Pete Davidson, and claiming that Bill Cosby is innocent, Adidas continued to endorse him. The brand’s continued commitment to West amongst public violence and offense highlights their artificial front and pursuit of wealth rather than justice.
West’s recent behavior has brought into the complexities of fashion’s relationship with politics into public dialogue. Evidently, fashion is inherently political, and there’s no way to separate the two facets of society from one another. Brands inevitably express their political beliefs depending on whom they represent through endorsements. When the Dassler brothers supplied shoes on behalf of Hitler for German olympians, they made a clear statement that they support Hitler and consequently his Nazi Party; when they altered the supply of their factory to provide munition for the Nazi party, they, once again, assumed a position as Nazi supporters. Their momentary support of Owens and eventually Spitz does not counterbalance the gravity of their past actions. They cannot claim to be a-political through nonchalant and short-lived endorsements of liberal figures. Fashion has a utilitarian function in society, and with that function comes política affiliation.
The politics of fashion creates an interesting duality: brands must strike a balance between their monetary interests and their position in the public sphere. These may not always align. The balancing game of making a profit and pleasing the public is a tough one, and it blurs the public’s ability to understand a brand’s sincere motives. It may never become possible to definitively declare whether or not a brand acts out of genuine care and morals or performative activism and a desire to appear politically correct in the public eye. Consumers, however, have the ongoing responsibility of trying their best to understand a company’s aims and whether or not those are aims that they want to support through their purchase power.
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