Steal Alert: adidas Originals Stan Smith in Red – $29.99

Footaction: adidas Originals Stan Smith – $29.99 ($80? $100?)

UPDATE: Well those things sold fast. Sizes have been decimated. Just a few left. 

Something is, if you’ll pardon the expression, afoot here.

These aren’t the baseline Stan Smiths with the slightly glossy leather and fat tongue. These very much appear to be the nicer, $100 line. How can one tell? Let’s do some detective work. Zoom in on the leather. These are the ones with the nicer, more “real” looking leather (there’s a bit of texture to it), and the soft, not as bulky, all leather tongue.

Yet Footaction (part of the Footlocker family), which is the source for this steal alert, has them priced at $80 full retail. That’s where the base line, glossier leather/fat textile tongue models usually sit.

So how to be sure? Another clue would be the colorway. “Lush Red” is the name of the shade at the heel. The only Stan Smiths on adidas.com with that “lush red” color? It’s the $100 line. Not the $80 base models.

Got all that?

IT WAS COLONEL MUSTARD IN THE BILLIARD ROOM WITH THE WRENCH!

I knew it all along.

Note that shipping is a steep $7.99 if your order is under $50. BUT… if you join their email club (it’s free), they offer standard shipping for free on all orders. If they show up and they have the glossier leather and the fatter, textile backed tongue and you DON’T like them (remember, they’re, y’know, $30…) then I’d contact customer service and get a free return. Because that certainly doesn’t appear to be the pair they’ve got on their site.

Huge thanks to Charles C. for the tip here.

That’s all.

Carry on.

P.S.: If you’re sick of adidas Stan Smith steal alerts because you’re just not interested OR you already own like, 3 pairs… I hear you. The thing is though, I find that the Stan Smith is an interesting economic bell cow for the menswear market writ large. It’s a bit like the big mac index. Because no matter how complicated the system, it all comes back to burgers and sneakers. Sort of. Okay, not really.