S5E4: Three Stripes, 75 Years: Tales From the adidas Archives

Transcript:

Erin Narloch 0:00

Hi and welcome to the History Factory Podcast. On today’s episode, we have a conversation with Sandra Trapp, who works at the adidas archive in Herzogenaurach, Germany. It was such a pleasure to be face to face with her at History Factory’s Archives Lab and Digitization Center outside Washington, D.C. During our conversation we had the opportunity to chat about everything about the collection, who oversees it, how it’s utilized by the business, as well as focusing our time talking about the anniversary milestone adidas celebrated last year at their 75th anniversary. It was a conversation in the making, and really one I truly enjoyed. Sandra and I worked together years ago when I was at adidas. So, I hope you enjoy this conversation. Give it a listen, give it a like, and here we go.

I was just thinking I was so excited for this conversation, because we’ve worked together.

Sandra Trapp 1:25

Yes, for, I don’t know how many years?

Erin Narloch 1:27

Two years? It was more than two years. Was it more than two years? But, it was almost a decade ago, yes, which I can’t believe but and, and we were working together in a different continent, so we were working at the adidas archive in, say, the city for me.

Sandra Trapp 1:46

Herzogenaurach.

Erin Narloch 1:48

Germany, what she said. And where is that, in Germany?

Sandra Trapp 1:53

Uh, it is based near Nuremberg. Most people know Nuremberg because of the Christkin market. So it’s close to Nuremberg, so south of Germany.

Erin Narloch 2:01

Well, Sandra, it’s such a pleasure to have you on today’s podcast, and I’m really looking forward to our conversation. I wondered if you could tell me just a little bit about the adidas archive in the history management team.

Sandra Trapp 2:15

So I joined the history management team internally in 2019 but I was lucky to research the brand’s history for five more years before as an external counterpart for the adidas archive or history management team, we were founded in 2009 officially. So we had our 15 year anniversary last year. Congratulations. Thank you. And although it was just founded officially as the history management team in 2009 our roots of the archive go back to our founder, because Adi Vassar himself collected the shoes back from the athletes, and that’s the basis of our collection.

Erin Narloch 2:54

Wow, wow. And you’re located on campus, right? Can you tell us a little bit about the location for the archive?

Sandra Trapp 3:01

Um, so we have our world of sports, which was formerly the herzo base, so where the US Army was based after the Second World War. And we have a huge campus. We have, at the moment, around about 6000 people working there. And we’re based really in the heart of the campus, which is the latest building, where all the design facilities are sitting, our athletes, servicing, our innovation lab. So we’re really based close to that.

Erin Narloch 3:28

That’s amazing. And so that’s where the collection is held. That’s where you all work. But do you do any kind of exhibitions on campus to promote the collection?

Sandra Trapp 3:39

Yes, we have two exhibitions on site. One is called the Halftime Gallery, which is based in one of our big restaurants and canteens on site so that people, while they’re having lunch, can explore our history. That is an exhibition we’re updating, usually five to six times a year according to our brand priorities. And then we have another exhibition on site. It’s our so-called, a brand exhibition in the podium building where all of our showrooms are based as well. And that’s a stable exhibition. So people can whenever they want to, have to have time, can walk through, have a look at the stuff. So it’s a more stable exhibition.

Erin Narloch 4:19

Great. Why do you think adidas and you mentioned it a little bit when talking about the founder. Why do you think they’ve chosen this global powerhouse to invest in an archive?

Sandra Trapp 4:32

It goes back to our founder, because he collected the shoes back from the athletes to improve the shoes and to learn from that and those shoes were kept over the decades. Also, after our founder passed away, we had a former Shoemaker based in Scheinfeld, where we’re still producing to keep this kind of library. And when he retired together with one of our at that time with Peter Moore, Peter Moore was very important to keep the art campus really as. Average, because when the former Shoemaker retired, Peter Moon was there like, this is your legacy. Keep it. And together with our former CEO at that time, we decided to invest into a proper archive.

Erin Narloch 5:10

Wow, that’s incredible. Thank goodness they chose to do that. So it’s not just it’s not just footwear, right? What else is in the collection?

Sandra Trapp 5:22

At the moment, we’re talking about 40,000 catalog pieces. I say catalog pieces because we have another storage that, of course, needs to be archived. Still, we have, of course, footwear because we started as a shoe brand, but over the decades, other products were added to the business as well as studio archives. So we have bags, we have a lot of apparel pieces. We have balls, not only soccer balls, also rugby balls, basketballs, everything we did back in the days. And then, of course, so called miscellaneous items, everything that doesn’t fit into those categories, and then a file archive as well, with just struggling and calculating it into the US measurements, but it’s around three kilometers of files in addition.

Erin Narloch 6:05

Okay, so three kilometers of files, folks, that’s over a mile. That’s an enormous amount of material to kind of oversee. Wow. It’s super impressive. So last year, adidas had this huge milestone, right? It celebrated its 75th anniversary. Can you just tell us a little bit about how the archive supported that, that milestone, and what are some of the things you did?

Sandra Trapp 6:31

So for us, this was really the biggest milestone. So for 75 years of the brand, which was huge, and we supported, of course, all the on site stuff we had going on. We had a special exhibition set up. It was called 75 moments. So I wanted to showcase over the whole year, 75 iconic moments of the brand in the halftime gallery we had up there as well. And then we had, of course, a huge festival coming up which we supported, of course, our employees and also the friends and families that were on site there. We gave tours the whole day. We had, of course, a time capsule where people could bury things. So we, of course, also gave some advice, what could be buried, what is iconic for the brand as well. We had a lot of media coming in, we had a lot of press interviews, we updated our history timeline on our company site so that everybody could have access to the stories of the brand. We also had a 75th anniversary collection, which were mainly shoes that were made by our founder back in the day. So that was a samba in their gazelle, Han Bucha. So those were shoes our founder worked on. That was the idea to bring a special edition for the 75 years with, of course, our foundation date, 18th of August, 1949 in the shoes. So we supported that.

Yeah, it was. So it was a big, big year. Those were just like the peaks of the iceberg. And you did, you supported a lot of social media content as well, right? I saw LinkedIn posts and quizzes and helped people learn more about the brand industry. Yes, we started with, like, a series that was called adidas trivia that was posted on LinkedIn. And we supported, of course, with, like, interesting stories and not so known facts about the brand, which always gives, like this connection for the people. And then we had, of course, a lot of athlete ambassadors coming over to also connect us with the brand. And we did, of course, a lot of other Instagram posts with color partners. We had a huge interview going live at the end of the year with a complex so it was really showing, showcasing our legacy since the beginning. That’s amazing. I really liked how you talked about the activations, not only being internal activations, but also for fans of the brand, right for consumers. Do you know why the decision was made to kind of go after both of those audiences? I mean, the last year was also for us as a brand, a huge sporting year with, of course, the Euro taking place in Germany, as well as the Olympic games taking place in Paris.

So we also supported all those activations from the archive, because we’re rooted in sports. This is our legacy, and that’s what we’re proud of, and that’s why we also wanted to showcase this to the public and let them also learn about our legacy.

Erin Narloch 9:31

That’s great. That’s great. How do you think the anniversary content was received, you know?

Sandra Trapp 9:40

I can only speak from what feedback that I get, everybody was really excited about it, like I didn’t know that about the brand. It’s great to know that. And like you felt really this passion, also coming from the consumers and everything, because they really, yeah, did not know that. And also, like showcasing our legacy through this. Big sports events in our anniversary year was something I think we’ve never expected to be as big as it was in the end, but it was just like this, I mean, to speak with our founders words, he would have loved that, and like the spirit was back of him this year. So this was today. It’s like I have goosebumps.

Erin Narloch 10:21

And I’m sitting right next to Sandra, and I can attest to the fact that she does in fact.

Sandra Trapp 10:26

It was very special to all of us. That’s and we’re very proud, really, to celebrate 75 years with the brand.

Erin Narloch 10:32

Oh, that’s amazing. Well, yeah, it was just really, as a fan of the brand and a former, you know, employee, it was a lot of fun to see the energy and the information sharing and the storytelling that came out through the 75th anniversary. So Sandra, at the beginning of our conversation, you were talking about where the archive is located on campus, kind of the central point, this hub, the heart of the brand really located in places you all serve so many internal stakeholders at the brand. Can you talk a little bit about how the archive supports, like product creation, and then we can maybe talk about some other ways you all support?

Sandra Trapp 11:18

There’s a lot of things we support, of course, like, as you mentioned, the product creation, we’re always wanting to have a living archive. We don’t want to store stuff in the back and don’t share it with people. For us, it’s important to share it with people and that they can take inspiration from that, which, of course, all of our designers do. They go to the archive, they get a reference. They’re researching things. They’re also researching stories like where the product comes from, to understand the product, where it’s coming from, and then they create something new out of it, which is, of course, always great. Also the cola partners, the big ones that we have are coming to the archive to source from that.

Erin Narloch 11:56

Brand DNA, right? All of that brand DNA?

Sandra Trapp 12:00

Absolutely, and then, in addition, also, when you when you have a new product coming out, of course, we’re like, serving all of our marketing people with the right stories around that, that we have a wonderful campaign around it when it’s rooted in in the archive, to to tell the story, because that’s what people also want to see, is like, there’s a story, it’s not just a product. There’s something emotional attached to it, yeah, the story, and that’s what we also want to share.

Erin Narloch 12:23

That’s great. And so you’re also collaborating with your marketing counterparts to help ensure the authenticity of a brand or the product story is coming through. Right with marketing?

Sandra Trapp 12:35

Absolutely, we do that on our, of course, our own channels, as well as on Instagram. We also do that on a confirmed app. So every time they need something from the archive, we also, we’re not only sharing the stories, we also share, for example, all the advertisements we do have which is always fun to look through.

Erin Narloch 12:55

I mean, sports history as thinking through the hairstyles of advertisements. I mean, I could be in that forever and find so much inspiration in it. I’m sure that, you know, marketers do the same.

Sandra Trapp 13:08

Absolutely, and for example, one of my favorite TV commercials, which was one of the first ones, was in 1976. It’s also hard to imagine, like before 76 there were no TV commercials really, kind of or moving content. And there were dancing shoes. You just saw shoes dancing.

Erin Narloch 13:25

I love it. So that’s great. So, you talked about product creation and supporting marketing campaigns. I can imagine, you know, you’re talking about the world of sports, quite literally, that you also have a lot of VIP visitors who come to the archive, who are the types of visitors you might see in the archive.

Sandra Trapp 13:48

Of course, we have a lot of our athletes coming to the archive because we want them to really share where we’re coming from, the legacy we do have, and that they’re part of this legacy, and we want to continue the legacy with them, so to, of course, connect them with the brand very closely. So they like coming to the archive quite often. In addition, of course, all of our brand ambassadors we have from all the different types, culture, music, art, whatever, we’re, of course, collaborating with all of our designers, our design partners, collaborators, are coming to the archive to also understand where the products come from, and then also to recreate new things out of the archive. And then, of course, also, we do a lot of onboarding also for our employees, which is also very important, and due to our heart that our employees understand the brand they’re working for, so they’re coming. And then, of course, investors, all the other partners that we do have to share, VIPs, all the VIPs pieces

Erin Narloch 14:47

I think that’s so interesting. And my experience in working in a product archive is that when you have collaborators and designers, external designers, coming in, the one place they want to go to is. Is the archive, and their reactions can be sometimes overwhelming, and it’s like the kid in the candy store. Or can you talk a little bit about the energy of a visitor coming to the adidas archive to create a new collection?

Sandra Trapp 15:16

For us it’s always very important that when they’re coming, that we, of course, present something to them that is very unique. So there’s not an archive, there’s not a standard archive tour. You will never get that. It’s really it’s always focusing on the person who’s coming because that makes this emotional connection also for us. And then the reactions can be completely different. I once had somebody coming into the archive falling down on his knees in front of me, because this was the basketball shoe he was playing in when he was a professional basketball player. But also, like, you have, like, all the different designers, they have different styles, how they work with products, different views on products. So you sometimes learn about details you have never seen on a shoe or an apparel piece before. Before, before some of the designers came and thought, yeah, have you looked at this part? So that’s really where everything can happen. Everything can happen in the archive during such a tour.

Erin Narloch 16:10

Yeah, that’s amazing. Then you also support the legal team, right? Can you? Can you talk about some of the ways that the adidas archive might support legal?

Sandra Trapp 16:22

We’re also there, of course, for legal reliability. So that’s why, of course, we keep track of all the products we have in the archive. We also keep track when they were launched, and that is very important so that our legal departments can, of course, have access to the product archive, but also the files, also old contracts, trademarks, patents, and it’s very important that they have the access to that as well.

Erin Narloch 16:41

So business, business in the back, party in the front, but that business part is really, really important, right? And that’s institutional memory that the archive holds. Is invaluable to your legal team, I’m sure.

Sandra Trapp 16:55

And also, like the tourist of the output of the archive, like all the research and all the time you need to tell that one story that maybe creates something out of the archive that, of course, takes a lot of time to research and work on. So that’s why we usually say, when you archive an adidas product, it can take up to eight hours to archive one piece.

Erin Narloch 17:15

Yeah, wow. That’s going back to that. How many products and items you have in the collection that’s an incredible wealth of knowledge that’s really been infused into the brand and offered to them. So just wondering, you think about, you know, the leaders of adidas and the people who come in and lead different divisions or at the highest level of the company, does the archive have a role in onboarding? Any new executives or kind of C suite people?

Sandra Trapp 17:47

The archive is always part of onboarding. It doesn’t matter which level. And of course, we have a very close connection to our leaders, and they also always enjoy, of course, to work with the archive, to get information from the archive, and also to come to the archive. So that’s very important to all of them.

Erin Narloch 18:06

That’s great. So I have to ask you, do you have a favorite item in the archive? This is always the most difficult question, like, who’s your favorite child? But do you have a favorite piece?

Sandra Trapp 18:19

I love this question, because usually every other week, you get a different answer from me. Today, I would say one of my favorite pieces at the moment is, at the moment I really have to say it’s our old soccer balls. I don’t know why, but at the moment, I really love talking about the old soccer balls. Maybe it’s because we have a World Cup coming up next year, but it’s like the development and also the design detail you have in World Cup bowls. It’s just insane. And we see the development from being leather, which can soak up to 40% of water, making it quite heavy to play with.

Erin Narloch 18:58

Wow, I never knew that 40% yes.

Sandra Trapp 19:01

It’s quite heavy. So that’s why the oldest one we have is from 1970 complete leather. And you see the development going into being, coming synthetic, and then you have different designs, like the connection with the hosting countries. So at the moment, I don’t know it’s, it’s bowls, I would say the soccer balls. I love that.

Erin Narloch 19:21

But, yeah, I mean, I can see where you’re going. They’re definitely iconic, and they do represent that hosting country. You can see it in the previous ball creation for sure. Is there anything that the adidas archive team is looking out for? They’re like, this is the one thing we’d love to add to the collection.

Sandra Trapp 19:42

Everyone in the team is having a so called bucket list of things we want to add. On my bucket list, there is still the woody let, which is a wooden adilette from the 80s. It was just in the range for two years. If we talk about the adilette, it’s, of course. It’s a slide that was worn in the showers. We added a wooden footbed for two years to that, and we don’t have one. It was relaunched in the 2000s with originals, but the old one, which was just arranged for two years, is lost. So that’s on my bucket list.

Erin Narloch 20:16

Okay, listeners, I always say, keep your eyes out for the woody. So if you come across them, we’ll put you in contact with Sandra. Thank you. Yeah, that’s, that’s wild. I’m now gonna, I’m gonna do my own solution to see if I can find it. It’s one of my favorite parts of these conversations with folks who work in archives. What are you looking for? What would you love to add?

Sandra Trapp 20:17

But, the bucket list is longer, so that’s just like the top number one, because it’s really hard to find. But they’re like a lot of other things. So every one of the team is really having its own bucket list to search for things. Yeah, we’re hunters.

Erin Narloch 20:55

I understand that. I understand. So is there anything on the horizon for the adidas archive that you can share with us, any projects that are coming up, or anything that you’re, you’re excited about?

Sandra Trapp 21:09

This year, of course, we’re focusing a lot of, like, researching and preparing also for the World Cup next year. So that’s like, the biggest topic we have at the moment. But we’re, of course, supporting, for example, the Boston Marathon coming up next week. So we’re supporting that as well from the history side. So there are really a lot of things going on, but our main focus already goes to the US for next year.

Erin Narloch 21:32

Yeah. So I mentioned this before we started recording. You have your own collection, a sizable collection of shoes. So how many at last count?

Sandra Trapp 21:50

At last count, it was over 300 pairs.

Erin Narloch 21:53

300 pairs of shoes. As someone who used to work in footwear, I can, I know how that can happen. But do you have, do you have a favorite pair that you’re wearing lately, or a favorite silhouette that you’ve been into?

Sandra Trapp 22:08

I mean, my two, my three favorite silhouettes are Samba, Gazelle and Stan Smith. For me, the Stan Smith is its a classic. It’s an absolute classic, and it also goes with everything at the moment. Of course, it’s more Gazelle and Samba, but yeah, those, I would say, all the most pears I do have in my, in my closet.

Erin Narloch 22:29

Yeah, that’s interesting, because those are my probably three favorite silhouettes, and the three, three silhouettes I’ve added to my collection this last year, or the samba the gazelle and Stan Smith. Just out of curiosity for our listeners, is there any way that they could learn more about the adidas archive, any thing that you’ve produced or done that they can go out and find and listen to or find and buy?

Sandra Trapp 23:01

Of course, we have some books out there. We have the adidas archive footwork collection. We met together with the tush and publisher and the photo agency we work with, and of course, playing the game, which is the first academic study of the brand’s history. But also recently, we had just, we worked on, we had an interview with Jason colts for the Peter Moore book, less is more. So that’s also out there. And of course, always feel free to drop us a mail to our inbox whenever we want to learn something about the brand, or also just join our company site for like the history timeline. And of course, follow us on audios, originals and the adidas channels on Instagram. So I usually find bits and pieces of the archive. There were some new campaigns we just did. So we’re almost everywhere. Spread it.

Erin Narloch 23:52

There you go. You’re everywhere. So there are some myths out there and maybe some stories we can share. Is it the first one I have for you? Is it adidas? Or adidas?

Sandra Trapp 24:04

In Germany? It’s always adidas, because it comes from the way we name the company. So it’s an abbreviation of Adi, his nickname and his last name Dassler. So that’s why it’s Adi das Adi Dassler. In the US, it was always pronounced adidas, and it didn’t stop because, of course, the one favorite song we all knew.

Erin Narloch 24:28

My adidas, Yep, thank you. Run the DMC. Okay, another question, what about one of the hat shoes? Now, the samba? Can you talk a little bit or tell us a little bit about its history or its story.

Sandra Trapp 24:41

It started in 1950 as a so-called Special football boot for icy and snowy pitches, which was the official model name, but that was the reason it was made for because it had a special soul. If you look at the old song, it has three holes in there, so when the athletes would wear it on the icy and snowy pitch. Which, like those holes were formed like a suction effect. And there was a special song addition to give more grip afterwards. It was called by the press and the players. This has to be a samba shoe, because everyone who played on an icy pitch was oh, like out of a sudden, running so fast, almost looking like dancing and playing like Brazilians. It had to be a sambo. So we renamed it after that. And since then, the samba was in the range as a shoe used for icing, story, pictures, still. And then it had changed into also being used for indoors, with the word we have nowadays, which was launched in 1972 with the low profile like the lower so low top and free zone profile. So with still, if you look at the samba now, you still find those free holds. You have to look.

Erin Narloch 25:49

Okay, I’m on it. There, there. So Sandra is wearing sambas right now, and she is showing me the outsole of her shoe. So I think everyone should dig out those sambas and get a glimpse for yourself. Any other great stories about adidas products or history that you could share?

Sandra Trapp 26:11

There are many. There are many. So of course, if you look at the gazelle, the gazelle was launched in 1966 so the gazelle turns 60 next year.

Erin Narloch 26:22

She’s looking great. Yeah.

Sandra Trapp 26:23

It started as a multi purpose training shoes back in the days, only available in two colorways, red for indoor training, blue for outdoor training, so clear color concept for the consumer. And of course, later, we added the nowadays, like an iconic solo, blowing up the gazelle with the hexagons, which was later added in the 70s, and nowadays it’s a fashion icon.

Erin Narloch 26:48

Well, thank you for sharing those bits of knowledge with us, and thank you so much for coming all of this way to have this conversation in person. It’s really been a pleasure. It’s so lovely to hear about a thriving company, brand archive, that’s really in the center of it at a company like adidas and not just thank you for being with us today and sharing so much with us and our listeners.

Sandra Trapp 27:17

Thanks for inviting me. It’s always great to share your legacy. I could have told a lot more stories, sorry. What we can do, maybe third and second or whatever episode. So it’s just like we want to share our legacy, because that’s what, of course, connects us with the people. That’s the heart of all of it.

Erin Narloch 27:39

Wasn’t that a fun conversation? I hope you learned something new. I really want to thank Sandra for joining us on the podcast today. It was really a wonderful conversation. And I really, you know, I don’t know. I’m gonna think about my sambas a little differently and look at the bottoms of them as well as look at the materials that adidas created for their 75th anniversary. I hope you enjoyed today’s conversation on the history factory podcast, and join us again real soon.