It was a large-scale prank played on fashion people at Berlin Fashion Week. The Adidas Reality Wear Show, a supposed adidas fashion show at Eventspace PLATTE Berlin, where a rebranding of the brand was announced and a new co-CEO. Most visitors do not realize that this is a deceptive staging.
With great applause, Buddy Blatnik, Senior Creative Director at adidas, announces the launch of the new Adidas campaign “Own the reality” and the new appointment of Co-CEO: Vay Ya Nak Phoan, who started her career as a factory worker at an adidas manufacturing facility in Cambodia. She walks through the rows shaking hands and then literally signs the “Pay Your Workers” agreement on Blatnik’s back, which commits adidas to sustainable and fair production methods. The runway show is intended to symbolize the suffering of the factory workers and is therefore shocking: the models have made-up injuries all over their bodies, have problems walking and breathing, are exhausted and sweaty and even wear branding of the adidas logo. At the end of the show, Blatnik and Phoan pose in a group display along with the models.
The brutal reality of factory workers – creatively staged
The looks of the Adidas Reality Wear Fashion Show consist of upcycled creations from adidas sportswear, which are partially soiled and torn. A model wearing violet wears a blue adidas tracksuit embroidered all over with the brand’s labels. Another wears a dress made from assembled green cards that she hands out during runwaywalk. The QR code for the “Own the reality” online shop is printed on it, together with a discount campaign that is also intended to benefit the “Garment Workers Severance Security Fund”. There’s even a kid walking down the runway in a cream cape made from adidas jackets put together. The designers of the collection Isabell buckle and Paula Keilholz are a creative duo and call themselves “Threads and Tits”.
An activist action masquerading as Adidas Reality Wear Fashion Show
What most people don’t realize is that both supposed adidas leaders are operating under false names. Phoan’s real name is Len Leng and she is a journalist and activist for the rights of women factory workers in Cambodia. Until the end, she remains in her role as the newly appointed adidas Co-CEO, giving interviews where she talks about the future of the brand. Blatnik’s real name is Mike Bonnano and he’s part of the group Yes Men, who have been professionally mischief and pranksters since 1996. They staged this event together with the Clean Clothes Campaign, an organization that campaigns for the rights of women workers in the textile industry. The goal of this campaign is to show that real change is possible for a brand like adidas if it comes from the top. As Blatnik and Bonnano emphasized in his welcome speech: “Impossible is nothing.”
It is an impulse for the new boss of adidas, Bjørn Gulden, who joined on January 1, 2023, who was Puma CEO for many years, to really push through the sustainable efforts of the brand and to keep promises. Ilana Winterstein is a representative of the Clean Clothes Campaign: “We wanted to show that adidas has power over its entire supply chain. They could make real and lasting change if they wanted to. With this event we created a utopian vision of what adidas could be. The fashion show represents the brutal reality of what lies behind the glossy advertisements. Adidas likes to talk about ‘women empowerment’ and such buzzwords, but these are empty promises. We wanted to reveal this mask and show the reality.”
Author: Jessica Haberl – Photos: KOWA-Berlin