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IN STOCK: Click here to buy the adidas Greenstar (Dark Royal, White) in the Crooked Tongues store now.

IN STOCK: Click here to buy the adidas Greenstar (Dark Green, White) in the Crooked Tongues store now.

The adidas Greenstar is a shoe that's steeped in legend. There's a lot of adidas stories that have never been properly told and folk have a tendency to overlook just how important this model is in shaping adidas as we love it and to simplify it as a Campus variant does it little justice. The Greenstar arrived in the very early 1970s, a decade prior to its more sibling and whole it came back in 2008, we liked that reissue, but the lack of metal eyelets and FP Campus carbon copy didn't do it much justice. Before the Greenstar, there was the rarely-seen suede Blackstar, but this shoe (we think) was made with the Boston Celtics in mind at a time when the suede basketball shoe was the model of choice, but that luxurious velour nubuck upper gave them a serious point of difference and the vulcanised non-marking sole with the gum outer and padded comfort fit made it a classic.

To make the Greenstar isn't a Greenstar — it's an adidas Tournament, which had the same specs but was available in an array of different colours, so what we've got here is a Greenstar and Tournament, despite them having the same names in 2012. We're sure we've seen a white leather Tournament too. That birthed the French-made Abdul-Jabbar Tournament, with Kareem's signature shoe bearing a very similar upper in suede, but ditching that vulc sole unit for a lighter one with a contrast outsole to match the suede. That led to the Campus. We'd really like to see a comprehensive book of adidas's basketball shoe DNA, because those little nuances that differentiate models in the 1970s are a a beautiful thing.

These vintage versions of the Greenstar opt for a similar darkened vintaged take on the outsole to the one seen on some subdued 'Your Story' court shoes at the moment and that yellow sole unit is pretty accurate to some archive versions we've seen, even if the pristine white badge on the heel isn't (that seemed to have yellowed with the rest of the rubber), but those materials, that shape, nubuck stripes and the eyelets, plus that satisfyingly dense lacing makes them things of beauty. Both colours arrive in the Crooked Tongues store next month.

IN STOCK: Click here to buy the adidas Greenstar (Dark Royal, White) in the Crooked Tongues store now.

IN STOCK: Click here to buy the adidas Greenstar (Dark Green, White) in the Crooked Tongues store now.