Third adidas Division revealed in Paris:adidas Sport Style Y-3 designed by Yohji Yamamoto

Herzogenaurach/Paris, October 8th, 2002 – adidas-Salomon revealed yesterday in Paris’ Stade de Charlety the first collection of the adidas Sport Style division designed by Yohji Yamamoto. More than 1,000 sportswear retailers, journalists and celebrities attended the event. This unique and unprecedented co-operation between one of the leading sports brands and the famous Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto is supposed to lead to the development of the future in sportswear. The first adidas Sport Style products designed by Yohji Yamamoto will hit retail in Spring/Summer 2003.

The collection presented in Paris consists of men’s and women’s shoes, apparel and accessories. The name of the collection adidas Sport Style Y-3 combines the mission of the sports brand with the vision of style to develop an unexpected and radical appeal. During the first season the collection will only be available in 100–150 selected stores in Europe and selected high-end stores in the US. The second season will see the collection being distributed and communicated to the Asian market.

“With this brand new collection adidas completes its product range and answers the demands of the international style-conscious and design-minded consumer. Our aim was actually to create a new vision for sportswear”, stated Erich Stamminger, Member of the Executive Board of adidas-Salomon AG responsible for Global Marketing.

adidas' divisional approach enables adidas to address the needs of its consumers in a very focused way. The adidas brand is segmented into three divisions: adidas Sport Performance (products developed for the sports performance market), adidas Sport Heritage (adidas Originals products) and adidas Sport Style. Both the Sport Performance and the Sport Heritage business show already strong results and therefore adidas is very much looking forward to the positive contribution adidas Sport Style will make to the business and brand from 2003 onwards. Medium- to long-term the adidas Sport Style division should account for as much as 5% of total adidas brand sales. Sales in the Sport Performance division will in the mid term represent at least 65 to 70% of adidas brand sales while the Sport Heritage division will have a share of 25 to 30%.