In the late 80s and early 90s, Germany was undergoing a seismic cultural shift. The Berlin Wall had come down, signifying physical and ideological freedom for Germans – and a refreshed approach to dressing. Gone was the fuss and excess of the 80s, making way for a stripped back approach to sportswear, heralded by Adidas’s high-end Equipment (EQT) line.

Now, Adidas is rebooting the EQT with a new red stripe. To mark the launch, Adidas Originals has released Only the Essentials, a short-film documenting the historical circumstances that led to the brands iconic line.

The story begins in the late 1980s at the foot of the Berlin Wall, where after several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced that its citizens were permitted to visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of euphoric East Germans crossed and climbed and chipped away at the barrier that had divided their country for more than 28 years. In just 48 hours, two million East Germans poured through the open border and after a week, more than half the country’s 16 million people visited the other Germany. The fall of the Wall paved the way for reunification, official demolition began in 1990 and formally concluded on 3 October 1990.

It was against this backdrop of cultural change that Adidas decided to re-evaluate their EQT sneaker. They deconstructed the design and stripped it back to the core design elements, which at the time was a counter-reaction to the maximal aesthetic that dominated sportswear industry.

The German brand wanted to create a piece of footwear that captured the energy and spirit of the time – the sense of liberation that came when the Iron Curtain was swept aside. Their new approach to design focused on function, “performance, protection and comfort”, free from trends and useless decorative features, which eventually gave way to a more minimal aesthetic that continued to prevail during the 90s.

Now in 2017, at a time when we are going through our own major political and cultural shifts, Adidas has gone back to drawing board and released a new style of the EQT sneaker. Its core design has remained unchanged, but with updated fabrics and the green stripes replaced with ‘Turbo Red’ ones, “designed to stand out in any crowd”. Or, perhaps red is simply a colour that is more representative of the current world climate?

Although our world has completely changed since the 1990s, the EQT philosophy still strikes a chord: “You don’t have a piece of equipment to have fun with, you have a piece of equipment to do something with.”