Adidas 1996 Annual Report Download - page 13

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13
AGIANT STEP AHEAD
Why is it that simple ideas seem so
ingenious? It’s often because the creative
ideas that work best require a genius to turn
them into reality; that’s the hard part.
Adi Dassler, the founder of adidas, was one
of those geniuses who knew how to tame
the devil in the detail to make great ideas
work the way he imagined.
Adi Dassler was so passionate about sport
that he dedicated his life to imagining
sports shoes that would enable athletes
to perform better by helping the foot – a
perfectly calibrated mechanism – to work as
it was designed to do. Shoes like the Copa
Mundial, Handball Spezial or Grand Slam
followed the foot’s own design. Another
example is adidas’ ‘Torsion’ design, which
allows the forefoot and heel to act indepen-
dently in the same way as the foot itself
moves. In fact, the ‘Torsion’ concept is the
forerunner to adidas’ giant step forward,
Feet You Wear, launched in 1996, and
already a success.
Feet You Wear is based upon a simple
observation: the foot in its natural state is the
athlete’s optimal ‘footwear’, whether tor-
sionning, bending, pushing, revolving, or
gripping the ground. The ultimate sports
shoe is one that will enhance the foot’s func-
tion without altering it in any way. Feet You
Wear is adidas’ answer to the challenge. It is
the product of a total comprehension of the
foot’s function plus a thorough understand-
ing of athletes’ requirements, translated into
a unique design through technological inno-
vation applied creatively.