What To Know About A Decade of adidas Spezial

This year marks one full decade since adidas Spezial (SPZL), created by longtime adidas collaborator Gary Aspden, came into being. To acknowledge the occasion, Aspden’s hometown of Darwen, Lancashire plays host city to a 10-day programme of concerts, film screenings and talks called DECADE — 10 years of adidas Spezial.

First, let's reminisce on what makes adidas SPZL so very spezial...

Northern-born Aspden set about creating adidas Spezial by way of feeling, rather than thinking. This is called instinct. Aspen’s instinctive muscles grew from lived experiences growing up in 1980s Northern England. A mix of football and fashion breadcrumbs educated Aspden on how the commandments of style impact your life pursuits. They embed desire. They feed the need…

‘I remember getting my first football kit. It was an Admiral England kit and it was super itchy and uncomfortable. Then a couple years later my Dad was a big fan of Brian Clough and got us Nottingham Forest kits. They were adidas kits and I remember the difference in the quality of fabrics they used…the branding on them was in flock. I still love flock to this day and I’ve used flock in the adidas Spezial range that I design. My brother got his nicked at school. They were the first branded goods that I remember.

Paul Rider tells me to go home and get my jeans taken in by my Mum [because I’m wearing flares]. So I go home and say "Mum I need my jeans taken in," and she’s like "What are you talking about?" and she’s like, "I don’t have a sewing machine and if I did, I wouldn’t know how to do that anyway." So it was like Cinderella didn’t go to the ball. I ended up sat watching Top of the Pops with my Dad. I remember that. I always said that was kind of year zero for me with fashion. I thought from there on, there’s no way I’m not being able to go with my mates to do stuff.

For me growing up, music, clothes and football were kind of everything, really.' — Gary Aspden, North, SHOWstudio, 2016

These transitory steps that envelop the life fashion and youth culture can develop, formed a sportswear daguerreotype for Aspden. An inbuilt compass, generated from casuals-era clothing contrasts, has equipped him with a unique understanding on the inherent relationship between history, sportswear and fashion. Connecting the 1970s — from Bob Marley and adidas Sambas to David Bowie and Stan Smiths — along the same timeline as 1980s Northern Soul, is how we see those SPZL Lothertons (the grinch green Ardwick A/W 14 remix!) or the pandemic release SPZL Parbold holdall come to be.

In Aspden’s hands, SPZL is recognised for shattering nostalgia tied to emotional ownership by redefining contexts through modern fabrics that progress as our technology evolves. The umbrella feelings adidas Spezial generate arise from the allure of your old memories that get remodelled as something new.

Leveraging his own authenticity with a legitimate value system is how Gary Aspden has made this decade-long conversation between adidas SPZL and the North of England go universal. His counter-cultural sorcery from the SPZL modern archive methodology unites various classes in our complex social systems. The adidas SPZL remarried the Commonwealth Games to Greater Manchester; Wolf Gillespie and David Beckham to SPZL anoraks; and pays forward relationships resulting from the romantic, global reach of being a genuine madcap adidas collector. This democracy that unites through sportswear was best exemplified in the SHOWstudio x SPZL two-part documentary from 2014-15. Here, we see the relationship between Aspden’s crew of collectors and Argentinian store owner Carlos Ruiz grow from a collective exuberance for the trefoil.

Homophones and parallels convene as Darwen hosts Darwin’s theory (evolutionary biology my dudes), on 17 May. The exhibition that celebrates adidas Spezial offers a 10-day opportunity for education. That is the power SPZL yields as it nods to exotic Northern lands with disparate style psychology. This monobrand realm champions its focus on the stories about collecting, as told by the Gallagher brothers in a retrospective book, as sung in live performance by Shaun Ryder and Black Grape.

It is an exhibition on how anarchy brings disparate influences together for fresh identities. As adidas is a German-founded company, fashion’s most famous German — Karl Lagerfeld — looms large with a straightforward epigram best explaining why the adidas SPZL formula matters: ‘People who say that yesterday was better than today are ultimately devaluing their own existence.’ And therein lies the ‘Spezial’ sauce that designs a decade.

The exhibition stages the vast SPZL archive of trainers, never-before-seen shoe prototype sketches, plus highlights the line's numerous apparel collaborations that hybridise SPZL as adidas’ secret weapon - future nostalgia. Launching ultimate collectors items including the adidas SPZL DECADE book, merchandise and the SPZL DECADE Pack anniversary shoes, it's a must-visit for adidas die-hards.

Opening on Thursday with a private gathering of SPZL's nearest and dearest, including Goldie, New Order's Bernard Sumner, Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols and Blackburn Rovers players, the DECADE exhibition is open to the public until Sunday 26 May at Four Teen Market Street, BB3 1AZ.

With local communities always at the forefront of SPZL designs, it's no surprise that Blackburn locals should also keep an eye out for a 5 day series of workshops by infamous shoemaker Blunt Shank in partnership with Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, plus a screening of adidas Spezial films on 22 May.

Celebrating a decade of SPZL whilst looking to its future, the SPZL DECADE Pack collection marks the anniversary by relaunching four reworked SPZL silhouettes: the Garwen SPZL, the Lacombe SPZL, the Blackburn SPZL, and the Ardwick SPZL. The collection will launch via adidas Confirmed on Friday 24 May.

Exclusive to the exhibition, the Blackburn SPZL (DECADE Pack) X Nightsafe edition shoe, which features a red leather swing tag, will be available in a limited run of 100.

Sign up to www.decadespzl.com for further details.