Slay with Rich Mnisi’s fresh addition to adidas ‘Pride Collection’

Rich Mnisi x adidas ULTRA 4D “Pride Collection” will be launched soon, in time for 2023 June Pride Month.

South African designer Rich Mnisi is part of a new wave of designers putting African stories on the global map. A queer designer at the very forefront of African fashion, Rich Mnisi founded his eponymous label in 2015. Born in Kempton Park, Johannesburg in 1991, he graduated from LISOF School of Fashion in 2014 and was named Africa Fashion International Young Designer of the Year at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Africa that same year.

Penning a hand-written letter to his younger queer-self, “let love be your legacy” has served as the core of South African designer Rich Mnisi’s contemporary and expressive work. Having served as one of a trio of award-winning fashion designers to drum up adidas’ 2021 “Love Unites” campaign, Mnisi has returned to helm the new year’s first Pride Collection with the Three Stripes.

Coordinating a triad of ULTRA 4D colorways, Mnisi’s collaborative Pride Collection honoring the LGBTQIA+ community comes rooted in the celebration of self-expression and his unwavering belief that love unites. Employing a duo of clad black offerings and a singular cream composition, the latter 3D-printed proposition gleams with golden branded detailing affixed to the heel counter and tongue alongside its gum-dipped tread.

Though both jet-black silhouettes feature seldom grey accents stitched into the vamp and midfoot, the initial pair remains disparate through a faded jade speckling that coats the heel and webbed midsole in tandem with its clad tread. A luminous violet touches down on the secondary ensemble, accented along the profile 3-Stripes and sock liner while the semi-translucent tread indulges in a floral arrangement.