You can now buy Billie Jean King’s famous blue suede shoes from Battle of the Sexes
https://www.fastcompany.com/91109230/this-is-the-magic-question-billie-jean-king-asks-ceos" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Billie Jean King had to fight to wear blue suede shoes during her famous 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” match that she won against Bobby Riggs.
Now Adidas has turned the silhouette into a lifestyle shoe.
Some 90 million people around the world watched https://www.fastcompany.com/91009608/billie-jean-king-womens-sports-investor-and-advisor" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">King defeat Riggs at that year’s match at Houston’s Astrodome. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/true-story-behind-billie-jean-king-battle-sexes-180964985/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">“I underestimated you,” Riggs told King after she beat him.
While Riggs wore a “Sugar Daddy” jacket to the match, King wore a mint dress designed by designer Ted Tinling with a blue wristband and blue suede Adidas shoes because she wanted some color.
With the U.S. Open in full swing, https://www.fastcompany.com/91502008/adidas-most-innovative-companies-2026" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Adidas has reimagined King’s famous shoe as a lifestyle shoe for the first time.
Called the Billie Jean King Shoe, Adidas is https://www.adidas.com/us/billie-jean-king-shoes/KH9856.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">now selling the shoe for $110.
The shoes come with an image of King and her signature on the tongue and the match’s set scores on the back.
They come in either blue or off-white.
“The goal was to preserve the look and spirit of Billie Jean King’s original Blue Suede Shoe while adapting it into a silhouette that could live naturally in today’s lifestyle footwear landscape,” an Adidas spokesperson tells Fast Company.
King said in a statement the shoe will always represent more than one match.
“They remind me of the progress we’ve made, but also of the work that is still ahead of us,” she said. “I hope bringing them back inspires the next generation to keep pushing for equality and to use their voices to create positive change.”
King https://www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions/collecting-billie-jean-king">donated her pair to the Center for Women’s History in 2016, and she said she had to push for it originally instead of wearing a white shoe.
“They didn’t want want me to since we all wore white with blue stripes but I said ‘No, I want color,'” https://hypebae.com/2018/8/billie-jean-king-adidas-am4bjk-speedfactory-interview" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">she told Hypebae in 2018.
Adidas released the Blue Suede Shoe as a performance tennis shoe in the 1970s, and it was the German sportswear brand’s first colored velour tennis shoe on the market.
More recently, it has brought back the colorway to promote King’s Here to Create Change campaign to encourage young women in sports.
In 2018, Adidas released a limited-edition blue-and-white AM4BJK shoe as well as held a BJK Your Shoes activation at the U.S. Open that year to spray paint people’s shoes blue no matter the brand.
By bringing back the shoe and colorway in a way new for a wider audience, Adidas is paying homage to the famous shoes and the message they represent for a new generation.