Adidas announced on Thursday that it is teaming up with Beyoncé. The German sportswear giant revealed that the music mega-star has signed on as one of its new creative partners to bring her popular Ivy Park collection – which she previously distributed beginning in 2016 by way of a venture with British-based fashion tycoon Philip Green – under the Adidas umbrella for a relaunch.
“This is the partnership of a lifetime for me,” Beyoncé Knowles said in a statement on Thursday. “Adidas has had tremendous success in pushing creative boundaries,” referring almost certainly to the company’s roster of big-name partners, which has ranged from musicians Kanye West and Pharrell to fashion designers Raf Simons, Yohji Yamamoto, Stella McCartney, and Rick Owens, among others.
According to Bloomberg, the partnership – which will see 37-year old Beyonce retain sole ownership of her company to continue “her journey as one of the first black women to be the sole owner of an athleisure brand,” per adidas – is expected to help adidas “wrestle with a slowdown in demand for retro footwear like the Stan Smith and Superstar, which drove its growth for years,” as well as threats from “archrival Nike Inc., which has been gaining ground on the German company on its European home turf.”
One striking takeaway from adidas’ announcement on Thursday was the reaction of the market. The publicly-traded sportswear company’s shares rose by 1.35 percent almost immediately after the announcement, ultimately closing at $127.20, up $1.55 (or 1.23 percent) from the morning’s opening price.
As for what adidas can expect in terms of sales from what it is describing as a “multi-layered” partnership with Knowles, if Zalando’s experience is any indication, it will big. The Berlin-based e-commerce site reported “stronger-than-expected sales for the first half of 2016,” which it attributed directly to the superstar’s Ivy Park collection.
Update (April 4, 2018): Article has been updated with adidas’ closing stock price for the day.
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