adidas Originals and Simone Rocha launch their Fall/Winter 2026 collection globally on September 10, and the shoe worth arguing about is the SR Climacool. Rocha has taken a performance runner and rebuilt it as a Mary Jane, with a leather upper, a cut-out tongue and a sculptural heel counter. It is the least obvious thing in the collection and the most revealing.
Simone Rocha founded her house in London in 2010, and the Irish designer built a reputation on a specific tension: heavy craft and delicate ornament applied to clothes that still have to be worn. Pearls, tulle, broderie anglaise, silhouettes that swell where you expect them to taper. Sportswear has not been part of that vocabulary, which she addresses directly in adidas’ announcement. “Sportswear is something I’ve wanted to explore for a long time,” Rocha says. “It was never about changing what already exists, but about revealing another perspective.” The collection was first shown at her Autumn/Winter 2026 runway in London in February, and adidas is framing it as the beginning of an ongoing partnership rather than a one-season drop. That framing matters for how you read the shoes. A one-off gets to be a spectacle. An ongoing line has to produce something people will actually buy in season two.
Three shoes carry it. The SR Taekwondo Ballerina takes the martial arts flat and runs ribbon through the lacing, with pearl-inspired and diamanté embellishment at the toe. The SR Japan Fuzzy Slip On works a pony hair-effect upper with an open heel and renders the Three Stripes as sculptural, pearl-like detailing rather than stripes at all. Then the SR Climacool, the Mary Jane. Climacool is a name adidas has attached to ventilated running shoes since the early 2000s and, more recently, to its 3D-printed line. This version goes the other way entirely, trading breathability and lattice for leather and a strap.
That is the interesting decision. Reworking a Taekwondo flat or a slip-on into something ornamental is a short trip, since both are already soft, simple objects. Turning a performance runner into a Mary Jane is a genuine argument, because it discards the entire reason the silhouette exists. Rocha kept the heel counter and made it sculptural, kept the tongue and cut it open, then attached a strap across the instep. The result is a shoe that quotes running without pretending to run, and it is a far more confident position than the usual fashion-house move of taking a sneaker and making it precious. adidas has spent two years handing the Originals archive to designers. This is one of the few times the designer has been allowed to break something.
The apparel makes the same case in a register that is easier to read. The Firebird track top is cropped and given exaggerated volume, the Beckenbauer gets a tulle underlay that softens a jacket built to be crisp, and the Superstar track top arrives with puffed sleeves. Those are recognisable garments altered in ways that would fail a focus group and work on a runway. The accessories go further into Rocha’s own territory, with the Trefoil rebuilt as a brooch and a hair clip in diamanté and pearl, knee-high football socks carrying the same detailing, and the adidas Airline bag remade in broderie anglaise.
adidas has not published individual prices. Collection releases of this kind, running through CONFIRMED with a fashion house attached, have generally landed well above standard Originals pricing, and the embellishment here is not cosmetic trim but pearl and diamanté work applied across footwear, accessories and apparel. Budget for designer pricing rather than Originals pricing, and expect the footwear to be the most contested part of the range given how few pairs these collaborations usually carry. Rocha sells through her own stockists as well, so the adidas channels may not be the only route, though the collection is being launched through them.
The adidas Originals by Simone Rocha Fall/Winter 2026 collection launches globally on September 10 through CONFIRMED and adidas. Alongside the three shoes it includes reworked Firebird, Beckenbauer and Superstar track tops, a Trefoil brooch and hair clip, knee-high football socks and an Airline bag in broderie anglaise. The campaign was photographed by Justine Kurland. Full details are in adidas’ announcement. For more, see our Climacool coverage and our adidas coverage.
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