Avirex and adidas Team Up on Superstar 82, Dropping March 2026

Avirex and adidas are releasing the Superstar 82 today, March 21, for $180 through the adidas CONFIRMED app and a dedicated pop-up at adidas SoHo at 135 Spring Street. The shoe, catalogued under SKU KJ3005 and also marketed as the Superstar Black, is available in unisex sizing and can also be found through select retailers online and in-store.

The silhouette is a rework of the shell-toe Superstar built around Avirex's signature appetite for scale. Heavy materials cover the upper, jumbo hardware replaces the standard eyelets, and thick oversized laces thicken the profile without burying the shoe's clean black-and-white color blocking. The extended tongue pushes the design further from the archival Superstar than most collaborators dare to go, yet the overall execution stays legible and wearable rather than veering into costume territory. It is, in short, a statement shoe that still functions as a sneaker.

This is the second Avirex Superstar in less than six months. The partnership produced a long-tongue version in late 2025, and the SS26 follow-up flips the concept by centering black-on-white color blocking against the previous release's formula. The continuity suggests adidas and Avirex are treating this as a sustained series rather than a one-off moment.

Avirex has been a fixture of New York style since the nineties, when its leather jackets circulated through hip-hop as a marker of credibility. The brand has spent recent years rebuilding that relevance through collaborations with Kith, Palace, and Hellstar, and the adidas partnership fits that trajectory. The campaign for this drop leans into the New York geography deliberately: St. John's guard Ian Jackson and DJ Nyla Symone front the rollout, bringing basketball and music into the same frame. The previous campaign placed Joey Badass and MJ at its center; the shift to Jackson and Symone reflects a deliberate push toward rising local figures rather than established names.

At $180, the Superstar 82 sits at a premium relative to a standard Superstar but is consistent with what collaborations at this tier typically command. The SoHo pop-up at 135 Spring Street gives the drop a physical anchor in the neighborhood that has always been central to Avirex's identity, and the CONFIRMED app release brings the wider audience in simultaneously. For those tracking the broader Superstar moment, adidas has been running an unusually active collaboration calendar around the silhouette, with campaigns involving Samuel L. Jackson, Tyshawn Jones, Hellstar, and Sp5der all landing in proximity. The Avirex version arrives as one of the more coherent entries in that wave: a New York brand, a New York shoe, and a campaign built around New York talent.