The adidas Adizero Evo SL Is Pulled into the Great Wave Off Kanagawa

Built for speed, adidas’ Adizero Evo SL has always leaned into performance first – check out the model’s TUNE colab, a release literally made for moving – but its latest design is stepping into a more curated space entirely, drawing directly from Katsushika Hokusai’s famous artwork: The Great Wave Off Kanagawa.

Created in the early 1830s during Japan’s Edo period, Hokusai’s The Great Wave Off Kanagawa began its life as a woodwork print, and depicts a towering wave curling over small fishing boats, with Mount Fuji sitting in the background. Despite its fairly modest size and OG function as a mass-produced print, it has since become one of the most influential works in Japanese art history – capturing a sense of movement and tension between nature and human life.

Interestingly, its English title is The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, but the Japanese title is Kanagawa oki nami ura, meaning ‘Under the Wave off Kanagawa’. And because it’s a work on paper, the piece is also very rarely displayed – only about three to four months every five years to help preserve it.

But where the artwork is rarely seen, this artsy Evo SL is the opposite and is made to be worn whenever! A grey upper carries wave graphics across the Three Stripes, with a pink-to-red fade adding contrast. On the lateral side, just one of the three boats shows up, paying homage to the idea of endurance.

The adidas Adizero Evo SL ‘The Great Wave Off Kanagawa’ has landed via atmos and looks set to stay as a Japan-exclusive. Keep it locked to SF for news of a potential wider release.

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