ADIDAS SUPERSTAR ADV COMES IN CARDBOARD AND GOLD

The adidas Skateboarding Superstar ADV is available now in Cardboard, Shadow Red and Gold, a colorway that puts a warm earth tone under a metallic accent on a shoe adidas describes as tooled for skateboarding and built off an iconic silhouette with mass appeal. It is sold at local skate shops and at adidas.com/Skateboarding.

The Superstar ADV is the skate version of the 1969 Superstar, and the details that separate it from the lifestyle shoe are all in the parts a skater touches. The images credit Semrubio, Bannsen and Yannick, with film by Torstenfrank.

Cardboard Under Gold Metallic

The colorway reads as three decisions. Cardboard sets the base in a flat tan that resembles a shipping box. Shadow Red takes the accent role, a muted brick tone instead of a fire engine red. Gold Metallic finishes the details, a metallic finish on the accents that keeps a plain earth palette from going flat. Retailers list the full name as Cardboard, Shadow Red and Gold Metallic.

Tan and brick together give the shoe a workwear bearing, closer to a boot than to a court shoe. It is a quiet palette on a silhouette that usually gets loud treatments, and it is the reason this pair looks more like a skate shop shoe than a fashion week shoe.

What Makes It a Skate Shoe

The Superstar ADV keeps the shell toe that made the original recognizable and rebuilds everything around it for grip and durability. A low profile shape keeps the foot close to the board for feel. Extra stitching reinforces the areas where grip tape wears hardest, a one piece tongue holds the foot in a formed fit, and a flexible cupsole gives the flick and grip a skater needs when landing.

A shell toe has always been a design risk for skaters, because a rigid rubber cap wears differently than a stitched panel. The ADV version answers that by treating the toe as a wear part and building stitching and cupsole flexibility to match it.

The original Superstar debuted in 1969 as a basketball shoe with a rubber shell toe, and it crossed into skating because that toe survives grip tape better than most leather. Skaters have been wearing it for decades, which is why a purpose built ADV version reads as a correction of a habit more than a new idea. Adidas Skateboarding is formalizing what riders were already doing, with stitching where the shoe fails first and a cupsole where the flick happens.

Second Superstar ADV Since July 23

The Superstar ADV is a repeat customer at adidas Skateboarding. On July 23 the brand released the WAF Superstar ADV, a limited quantity version with a leather upper and breathable mesh inspired by Lagos Island, made with Wafflesncream, a skate collective based in Lekki, Lagos. That one was a regional story with a scarce run. This new colorway is a general release.

Two weeks later, on August 6, the brand pushed a different heritage shoe, the Samba ADV, which rebuilds the 1949 Samba football boot with a two layer Adituff toe and a grippy cupsole. Put together, adidas Skateboarding is running a clear program in 2026: take the two oldest shoes in the catalog, reinforce the toe, and release them in colorways specific enough to feel like a limited product.

Skate Shops First

The release line is unambiguous: find it in your local skate shop and online. That order matters. Skate shops carry adidas Skateboarding product before the wider market does, and they are the customers who watch how a shoe wears after a month of use. The brand also spent September putting its riders on camera, sending four skaters to Lisbon for the Glenburn, which shows how much of the line is built around skating itself, and not only for wearing.

The Read on Cardboard

Expect the Cardboard, Shadow Red and Gold Superstar ADV to sell through steadily in skate shops and to be the version people wear on a ramp and off one. It sits between the WAF Superstar ADV's limited Lagos Island run and the Samba ADV's Adituff toe, and it is the easiest of the three to buy: no scarcity, a low profile, a shell toe and a palette that will look better after the first month of wear, not worse.