The adidas Busenitz is a flagship of its program. Over a decade later, it has become a classic that’s still widely worn by both skaters and non-skaters alike. Similar to Nike SB’s Janoski, the design was a huge risk at the time. adidas’ skate program was still fairly new. The silhouette, which borrows heavily from soccer, was a lot different from the typical skate shoe of its era. And there was no way to know how it would be received. Busenitz recalls the process and his nervousness starting at the 22:25 mark of the latest episode of The Bunt.
It’s nice to see it succeed. It’s cool because that was my first shoe. And I’d never designed a shoe or anything like that. At the beginning, I went into it kind of cocky and everything. Like, “Oh yeah, this is what I want. Let’s do this. Let’s do that, and everything.” And it’s a big ordeal to make the whole thing. It takes forever. When it was getting closer to hitting the shops, I was getting kind of nervous. Like, “Are people really going to buy this? Is adidas going to be stuck with thousands [of pairs] of these shoes that nobody wants to buy?” It did well. That was kind of a relief.
Listen to the entire interview above.