The Adidas Forum was originally released in 1984 as a basketball shoe with a distinctive ankle strap.
Adidas designed the Forum for on-court use, combining a high-top structure with an adjustable ankle strap intended to provide additional support. The strap became the model’s defining visual feature and helped separate it from simpler basketball sneakers of the period.
The Forum appeared in both high-top and low-top forms. Its basketball origins are sometimes overlooked because the shoe later became popular in casual fashion, music, and sneaker collecting. The model’s clean paneling and three-stripe branding made it adaptable to lifestyle styling.
The Forum is often confused with the Adidas Rivalry, another 1980s basketball-inspired sneaker. Both belong to the same broad era, but the Forum is the Adidas model particularly identified by its ankle strap and 1984 introduction.