Adidas and Yohji Yamamoto launched the Y-3 label in 2003.
Y-3 joined adidas’s sportswear expertise with Yamamoto’s high-fashion design approach. The name combines the letter Y, referring to Yamamoto, with the number 3, associated with adidas’s three-stripe identity. The partnership became an early and important example of a sportswear company working with a major avant-garde fashion designer.
Y-3 products often reinterpret athletic shoes and clothing through exaggerated proportions, monochrome palettes, technical materials, and sculptural silhouettes. The label helped make designer sportswear more visible in fashion and streetwear circles.
Y-3 is not simply a rebranding of adidas’s main line, nor is it the same as adidas Originals. It is a distinct collaborative label whose identity depends on the continuing relationship between adidas and Yamamoto.