Yesterday we posted an old school adidas SL76 sneaker ad which reminded me that we had a reader of the blog reach out awhile ago looking for sneakers that were like the SL76… except with 4 stripes. They passed along this photo of Dennis Wilson from the Beach Boys and Karen Lamm from 1977 right before Wilson released Pacific Ocean Blue. If you want to check out other 4 stripe celebrity sneaker photos we have also posted about Neil Young and Dale Earnhardt Sr and if you want to see a goldmine of celebrity sneaks you should check out the @trainer.spotting instagram account.
Best of the Worst sneaker bootlegs: Abibas brand sneakers
I bet you've heard of Adidas... but have you heard of Abibas? Abi Bassler's namesake brand 🤣 According to some knowledgeable heads over at reddit these are available at the Hong Kong street market and also (supposedly) sold at the Hong Kong airport too.
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Shout out and credit to the crappyoffbrands reddit page for this image
Sears the Winner retro sneakers by Warehouse Company (Japan)
A couple of weeks ago I posted the Adidas and Converse side by side of the Sears the Winner kicks and mentioned the original sneakers from the early 70s sell for between $1500 - $2800 now. It turns out that a company in Japan called "Warehouse Company" is still putting the 4 strips Converse version of these out and they sell for about $100. This images are from a Rakuten store called "CLEVER WEB SHOP" but unfortunately their inventory is currently sold out. Shout out to @secondhand_nate for this passing along the info on Warehouse Company.
Sears the Winner 1974 vintage shoes by Converse AND Adidas
Another sneaker mystery... one of the readers of the blog emailed this over (thanks to Susan S for the photo) so I wanted to post it. The left image is from the 1974 Sears Fall catalog for Simpsons-Sears in Canada. What's odd is that these Sears the Winner shoes there were made by Adidas while the identical shoe model from the same year in the right side of the image was made by Converse for the US market. What’s odd is that the Adidas Canadian version have 3 stripes and the Converse have 4. Either way, I've seen these sneakers for sale online for between $1500 - $2800 so if anyone spots a pair at your local thrift shop you should probably scoop them up.
Here’s another catalog image from Sears in 1976 where the adidas Winner line is featured.
