adidas — Consortium & Concept Stores

The situation

adidas Consortium was the collaboration architecture through which adidas worked with the most culturally significant independent retailers globally. Unlike mainstream partnerships, Consortium operated inside the specific logic of sneaker culture — where the quality of a creative partner, the narrative behind a release, and the decision about who gets access were all signal.

In parallel, adidas Concept and Icon Stores — No74 in Berlin, No42 in Paris — were physical environments that needed to function as genuine cultural destinations, not retail flagships wearing the costume of culture.

The real problem

In both cases, the risk was the same: the appearance of cultural engagement without the substance. A Consortium release executed without genuine creative investment would be read as a category move. A Concept Store programmed without understanding the city it occupied would be read as brand theatre. Both outcomes would have damaged credibility in precisely the communities whose respect sustained the commercial value of these programmes.

The work

Led global brand marketing and communications for the Consortium programme — developing the narrative frameworks that gave each collaboration its specific cultural position rather than a generic brand story. Ensured cross-market coherence while preserving the local relevance that made individual releases land.

For the Concept and Icon Stores, led creative direction across content, programming, creator integration, and editorial storytelling. Built the cultural calendars that made these spaces relevant to local communities in Berlin and Paris — not as marketing environments but as places worth being inside.

The outcome

A collaboration programme and retail format that sustained credibility inside subcultures that are structurally resistant to institutional participation — and that continued generating cultural and commercial return across a sustained period.