Meet the Artists adidas Worked With to Reopen Its Toronto Flagship Store

The local creatives represented for the Toronto arts community at last weekend's opening festivities.

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After four months of renovations, adidas reopened its flagship location in Toronto last weekend with a  blowout block party that included DJs, food trucks and a surprise performance by Partynextdoor. The Toronto flagship represents the first "Neighbourhood Concept" store in Canada, a model that has homes in cities from Berlin to Bangalore.

The aim of the Neighborhood Concept is to connect the global brand with local communities, with local artists and creatives contributing to each location. For the Toronto chapter, adidas worked with designers Sean Brown, Amrit Kumar and Mriga Kapadiya of NORBLACK/NORWHITE and artist Mango Peeler on custom tees that were available as an exclusive gift with purchase during the opening weekend. They also commissioned Toronto-based illustrator, Gyimah Gariba to create some special art installations for the new store.

NORBLACK/NORWHITE x Mango Peeler

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Friends Amrit Kumar, Mriga Kapadiya and Mango Peeler have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to work together, and after 10 years of preparation it finally happened. Inspired by the slow and steady (or slow and ready?) nature of turtles, the team designed three colourways of the classic adidas Originals T-shirts with the back of the shirt representing a turtle shell. Mixing NORBLACK/NORWHITE's penchant for fabrics with Mango Peeler's signature colourful style, the result was an amazing crop of one-of-a-kind shirts that celebrates Toronto's vibrance and collage of cultures.

Sean Brown

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Sean Brown is a master of simplicity. For his adidas collaboration, the designer extended the philosophy of his own collection NEEDS&WANTS: less is more, and because something is simple doesn't mean it's boring. He took a classic adidas Original T-shirt, overdyed them with the help of a facility in Montreal, and added a soccer number on the back, a nod to the soccer culture that is a cornerstone of adidas' operations but also to Brown's own first memory of the Three Stripes—seeing Bob Marley play the beautiful game

Gyimah Gariba

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Illustrator Gyimah Gariba believes in the power of the youth, and he made sure the youth of Toronto played a large role in the art piece he designed for the interior of the new adiadas store. The designs touch on the evolving city, and both the history and the future—a streetcar is one of the most iconic and distinctly "Toronto" motifs, and in Gyimah's design is quite literally being propped up by two youths of different ethnic backgrounds.

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