Shelflife x Consortium ZX 4000 “Handcrafting” by adidas (2019)

In 2019, adidas’s prestige Consortium label enlisted South African retailer, Shelflife, to co-create this running shoe inspired by traditional South African textile craft. Although the silhouette stays true to adidas’s celebrated model ZX 4000 – a sneaker originally released in 1989 – the medial sides feature colorful, jacquard-printed panels. This is the first “colab sneaker” to integrate African-sourced leather and wood, the culmination of what Shelflife founder Nick Herbert called “a really long and tough journey to get it right.”