Adidas partners with African Skate Community Waf. for Superstar ADV

Adidas has partnered with African skate community Waf. (Wafflesncream) to create a collaborative edition of the Superstar ADV. 

Marking the sportswear brand's first partnership with a Nigerian brand and its first with an African skate community, presale for the sneaker launches today ahead of its global release in October.

Waf. was co-founded in Lagos in 2012 by brothers Jomi and Nifemi Marcus-Bello with KC Obijiaku, built around the idea that skateboarding belongs alongside fashion, music, art and design. The collective opened its first skate park at Freedom Park in 2024 and its annual Go Skate Day has become one of Africa's defining skate events.

“When we started, it was a handful of kids skating whatever Lagos gave us. Nobody handed us a scene. We built one, down to a skatepark standing on the grounds of an old colonial prison,” said Jomi Marcus-Bello, co-founder of Waf., in a press release. 

Adidas has supported Waf.’s community work for years, including its annual Go Skate Day, and the collaboration between the two builds on that. The Superstar ADV is inspired by Lagos Island; the dusty grey upper draws from the Island's industrial landscape, with the translucent pink outsole a subtle nod to the pink Lagos sky at dusk, and breathable side panels built for the heat it will actually be skated in.

“People ask why the shoe is pink. Stand on the Island at the right hour, this close to the sea, and look up: the sky turns pink. That is Lagos,” continued Jomi Marcus-Bello. “This shoe carries fourteen years of our community, and it carries our sky.”

Initially launched in 1970 as a basketball shoe, the Superstar has been a prominent silhouette across other sports, music, fashion, art, and, in particular, skateboarding, over the last fifty years. “When the Superstar came to us, a shoe with more than fifty years of history, the question was never how to decorate it. It was what this city would ask of it,” added Jomi Marcus-Bello. “Skateboarding gave us our community, and that community gave this design its language. This shoe is where the two finally meet.”

The Superstar ADV collaboration is in line with Adidas’s broader approach to its partnerships, which seek to amplify communities that are shaping culture.  “Waf. have been at the forefront of skateboarding and culture in Lagos without waiting for anyone's permission. This shoe is that story, told in their language, and it opens a chapter the Superstar has never had: an African one,” said Estee Erasmus, Director, Category Management EM South, Adidas.

Launching globally on October 12, 2026, online and in selected Adidas stores, the Waf. x Adidas Superstar ADV is now available for pre-sale, with a limited drop at the Adidas flagship store in Lekki, Lagos.