Summertime is the best time to enjoy the sunny weather and the high UV index. Take Georgetown: Grabbing an iced coffee, walking up and down the red brick streets, passing by boutiques and shops. This is exactly what I did on the last day of July, and the one thing that caught my eye as soon as I walked out of Starbucks was something that I had already seen in New York, where I had been a week before; everyone was wearing the same shoes. And, like in the streets of SoHo, it was hard to ignore. I couldn’t walk a block in Georgetown without seeing variations of every different design; white ones, black ones, even leopard print. Similarly, I noticed this on the first day of school: when I looked down at people walking around the hallways between periods; It didn’t take long until I saw a pair of Sambas.
Sambas were first seen in 1949, and they’ve mostly been worn by soccer players on the field until recently. Originally, German soccer players in the 1950s began to wear them to matches, and, instead of the current design of the shoe, they had more rugged, boot-like features, which were made for icy and slippery fields. It wasn’t until 1972 when Adidas officially came out with the shoe as we know it today.
The 70-year-old shoes were even more popularized when British designer Grace Wales Bonner collaborated with Adidas to make a new design: a cheetah print outer sole, with a blue inner sole. Sophomore Kal Yewlsew, who recently purchased black Sambas during the summer, said,t “The reason why I got sambas was because I thought they were cool, and I saw a lot of people wearing them. I got them in black. I don’t really know a lot of people who have them, but I saw a lot of seniors wearing them last year.”
Sophomore Brianna Ford agrees with Yewlsew’s fondness for the shoe’s design. “Honestly, I just got Sambas because I think they look good with any outfit, you can rock them with anything,” Ford said. “They’re just the right shoe in my opinion.”
In the past few years, Sambas have gone from being worn on icy pitches to being worn by celebrities like Frank Ocean, A$AP Rocky, Bella Hadid, to what junior Mona Olsen saw: practically every college student studying in Midnight Mug and Compass Coffee in D.C. was wearing Sambas. “It’s pretty insane how many Sambas I see in D.C.. You really can’t ignore it. And they aren’t totally new either; they’ve been getting even more popular ever since 2022. I definitely agree with the shoes to wear right now,” Olsen said.
Even politicians are hopping on the Samba bandwagon. In April, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak donned white Sambas during an interview discussing his tax policies. According to The Guardian, Sunak apologized after his wearing of the shoes made them seem even more popular. “I issue a fulsome apology to the Samba community. But, in my defense, I would say I have been wearing Adidas trainers including Sambas – and others, in fact – for many, many years,” Sunak said on LBC Radio.
But not everyone is crazy about shoes. Sophomore Reya Kurup said she’s tired of seeing so many of the same shoes. “I do think they look good, but everyone wears them now. They kind of went from being these cool Adidas that no one really knew about, but now they’re pretty basic,” Kurup said.
Even though people can argue that Sambas appear to be overhyped, the shoes have been around for more than 70 years and they’re definitely not going away yet.
