adidas seems to like teaming up with designer brands lately. There’s the one with Prada and a rather extensive collection with Gucci. The latest addition to adidas and its streak of luxury collabs is with Balenciaga, and it’s more than just the Three-striped Triple S sneaker.
Browsing through the Balenciaga site, the collaboration with adidas is quite extensive and just as pricey as the Three Stripes’ collab with Gucci. To give you an idea, a regular fit t-shirt will cost you $795, or around Php 41.6k when converted. The hoodie will cost you $1450 or around Php 75.8k–which is way more expensive than the Yeezy GAP Balenciaga Hoodie even if you try to buy it at the resell market.
Now if you want to get some “value for money”, you might be better off getting the infamous Triple S sneaker for $1100 (~Php 57.5k) in either a generic black/white or a dominant blue colorway. Prefer a sock-like fit? There’s also the Speed Sneaker in black/white for $995 (~Php 52k), though we don’t see the sense of spending that much money for a pair of socks that have a sneaker midsole–speaking of socks, the adidas Balenciaga socks sell for $210(~Php 11k).
Just like the Yeezy GAP Balenciaga collection, the adidas collab also has oversized short sleeve and long sleeve tees (which we think is a trademark staple of Balenciaga Creative Director Demna) are very expensive at $895(~Php 46.8k) and $995 (~Php 52k). For the price of the long sleeve tee, I could easily get myself five pieces of the Yeezy GAP Balenciaga one at resell–after all, they look similar save for the cuffed sleeves and the obvious branding.
Compared to the Gucci collab, the Balenciaga collab feels underwhelming–but not as underwhelming as adidas’ collab with Prada. Unlike the Gucci collab where you clearly have the Italian brand’s loud aesthetic, the Balenciaga collab feels like adidas slapping on additional branding and hike up the prices (save for the Triple S and Speed Sneaker, both being staple Balenciaga products).
Unless you are a fan of both brands, you might be better off waiting for the next Yeezy GAP Engineered by Balenciaga drop on May 25, which is far more affordable and has practically the same Balenciaga aesthetic (save for obvious branding).
