Politics x adidas Handball Spezial Rhythm and Blues

The Politics x adidas Handball Spezial “Rhythm & Blues” releases September 12 at 9:00 AM CDT by draw through Sneaker Politics, style code KZ6656, at $110. That is $10 to $20 less than the general release Handball Spezials sitting on the same retailer’s shelves this morning, which almost never happens with a collaboration. The shoe is also being reported under the wrong name in several places, and the difference between what the feeds are calling it and what the store is calling it is the whole point of the pair.

The Handball Spezial is one of the few adidas silhouettes whose name is a literal job description. adidas first released it in 1979 and built it for elite athletes on the indoor courts of Europe, with a suede upper, a T-toe overlay and a gum rubber outsole doing the work that indoor handball asks of a shoe, which is grip on a polished floor and enough structure to change direction on it. Nothing about that brief was fashionable. The shoe survived because Northern England adopted it decades later and turned a piece of German sports equipment into terrace uniform, and because the last three years of adidas running its archive as a business have made the Spezial family one of the most reliable things the brand owns. It arrives now with a strange advantage over the Samba and the Gazelle. It never got saturated in the same way, so a retailer can still do something to it without the result reading as the fortieth version of a shoe everyone already owns. adidas has kept the model working in both directions this year, from a straight brown general release to a Messi pair in black and silver, and the range that allows is exactly what a store like this needs.

This is a leather build rather than the usual suede, which matters, because the polka dot print running across the panels needs a surface that will hold an edge. The dots are not one color story either. Cream and white panels carry black dots, the three stripes run red with white dots, and the toe and quarter go deep blue with white dots against a navy heel, listed by adidas as Cream White, Cloud White and Night Indigo. A gold foil Politics stamp sits on the heel and the store’s 20th anniversary logo is embossed on the insole. Waxed laces with gold aglets come in the box alongside a spare set, and the whole thing lands on a semi-translucent gum sole. It is loud in the way a printed shoe has to be, but the base is restrained enough that the print reads as pattern rather than as costume.

The story behind it is worth more than the print. The dots trace back to Buddy Guy, the Louisiana-born bluesman who told his mother he would come home in a polka dot Cadillac and never did, and who spent the rest of his career carrying the pattern on his clothes and his guitars anyway. Sneaker Politics is a Louisiana store, which is the connection, and the retailer has been running the theme for a while. Its 20th anniversary adidas Samba showed a sliver of it in mostly black and white. This one opens the idea up. That is a real editorial decision from a shop rather than a colorway brief filled in by a brand, and it is the reason “Rhythm & Blues” is the correct name for the shoe and “Polka Dot,” which is what the release feeds are running, is not. The pattern is the vehicle. The music is the subject.

The price is the part that should get attention. Sneaker Politics is currently listing general release Handball Spezials at $120 and $130, so the collaboration with the gold foil, the branded insole, the leather upper and the extra laces comes in under the stock pair by $10 to $20. Collaborations normally run the other way. The adidas x Tyrrell Winston TW Climacool asked $220 last week against a general release Climacool nowhere near that number. Holding a draw shoe at $110 is either a deliberate choice to keep an anniversary pair accessible or a sign that adidas priced this as an in-line makeup and let the store dress it. Either way, $110 for a leather Spezial with this much finishing on it is the best value on the September calendar.

The Politics x adidas Handball Spezial “Rhythm & Blues” releases September 12 at 9:00 AM CDT in Cream White and Cloud White, style code KZ6656, at $110. It is a draw at Sneaker Politics, and all sales are final. No other stockists have been named, and it is not currently listed on adidas.com, so the store’s draw is the only confirmed way in.

Written by

The Sneakers Team

The Sneakers Team is the editorial desk behind becausesneakers, founded and edited by Nick Engvall. Nick has spent more than two decades in the sneaker industry. He built the original Eastbay Blog, led the first dedicated sneaker team at Complex, ran the first UGC and seeding programs at Finish Line, was employee number nine at StockX, and served as Senior Director at Stadium Goods. He hosts the Sneaker History podcast, and his first book, Small Luxuries: Sneakers, arrives in October 2026 from Motorbooks. Release details on this site are checked against the brand's own product information before publication, and anything we cannot confirm is labelled rather than stated.

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