The selling point for the new $250 version of the Adidas Samba designed in partnership with Canadian brand JJJJound is the shoe’s German craftsmanship—its rollout included a video of German shoemakers talking about their work. But a closer inspection reveals a more complicated story of the shoes’ origin.
An image posted to JJJJound's Instagram Story this week showed a worker putting together a disassembled pair of the Montreal studio's Samba collab. In the photo, a tag reading "made in Vietnam" is visible, despite the shoes being heavily advertised as being produced in Adidas' Scheinfeld factory in Germany.
Reddit threads and Instagram comments under JJJJound's posts have highlighted the discrepancy.
In a statement provided to Complex, Adidas explained that the shoe was finished in Germany if not totally made there.
“The Adidas JJJJound Samba was crafted in Scheinfeld, Germany,” the brand said. “Whilst components of the shoe are produced throughout the Adidas supply chain, the shoe was hand-finished and constructed in Germany.”
JJJJound did not respond to a request for comment about the sneakers.
When it comes to products being advertised as made in Germany, there are no set requirements for how much of the production must take place there. This means that the JJJJound x Adidas Samba can still be labeled as a German-made sneaker even if production occurred elsewhere and the pairs were only assembled in Germany.
Other brands use this messaging: New Balance's Made in USA line requires a domestic value of at least 70 percent for sneakers bearing the designation.
Ironically, those who tried to cop a pair of the sneakers on JJJJound's website when they launched on Wednesday were prompted with a bot-protection question that asked users where the shoes were made. The correct answer, according to JJJJound, was Germany.
