Adidas Originals Launches Tubular Gallery In L.A. Tonight

Adidas Originals’ Tubular franchise boasts a futuristic look that has quickly resonated with today’s fashion-forward sneaker consumer.

To celebrate the franchise and the brand’s forward-looking ethos, it hosted its “Future Capsule: A Tubular Project” in New York City this week, with a similar gallery opening today in Los Angeles at The Seventh Letter.

With the gallery making its West Coast debut this evening – and remaining open until Sunday – Footwear News spoke with Brandon Beaty, director of U.S. brand communications at Adidas Originals, about the concept of the show, what spectators can expect to see (including its Runner, X and Viral silhouettes, among others) and the characteristics of the people wearing its Tubular kicks.

Future Capsule NYC Adidas Originals — A look inside the NYC gallery.

CREDIT: Courtesy of Adidas Originals

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How did Adidas Originals select the artists that appear in the gallery?

The concept of the gallery is rooted in our 2016 brand direction, which is the idea of the future, empowering consumers to create their own future and have this positive outlook on it. When you overlap that notion and idea with what our brand stands for of creativity, individuality, authenticity, we really took an approach to say, “Who can bring both of those flavors to the table and represent their interpretation of future in the best way possible?” Their skills range, but they definitely check the boxes of being true to something that we look for any time we do something like this.

What is it about the Tubular franchise that inspires these artistic displays?

Tubular as a franchise is really exciting for a few reasons. One, it’s still born from the DNA heritage of sport, which is where everything that we do comes from. But where we look at it today, it’s redefining how we see sport-inspired fashion on the street at a price point that’s very achievable and a look that’s very relevant. Whether it’s the Doom or the Radial or these other silhouettes that are coming out under the Tubular franchise, you’re seeing it gravitate toward people who are more fashion-forward with a lot more creative interpretations, so it’s a perfect match.

Is everything with the gallery based on the Tubular franchise?

Tubular is definitely the footwear focus of the museum, but the idea is the “Future Capsule: A Tubular Event,” and you’re going to hear a lot of this talk about the future and that’s something as a brand that we’re getting behind. We have a lot of franchises that fit under that umbrella, whether it’s Tubular or NMD or other fashion-forward product franchises, but for this particular one we chose the venue, we chose the artists, and we chose the aesthetics to be very much in line with Tubular.

Will Tubular silhouettes be on display?

You’re going to see them as the centerpiece — kind of like the hood ornament of the space, if you will. You’re going to see it physically represented there in an actual capsule and highlighted with a spotlight right on that one. When you go there, you’re going to see a cool range of a lot of different silhouettes from the Tubular franchise. It’s all going to be this season, a collection of different colorways and models, but focused on now.