By Andrea Sacal
JENNIE has finally been handed the keys at adidas, and what she did with that power is a masterclass on K-pop’s influence far beyond the charts. From adidas Sambas and Superstars to track jackets and football jerseys, JENNIE constantly puts the Three Stripes on display anywhere between the front row and the recording studio. For years, her relationship with the German sportswear giant has felt remarkably natural for someone who can just as easily be found sitting front row at Chanel.
The clock was ticking on JENNIE’s debut adidas collaboration, and it has finally landed with athletic reinterpretations of graceful ballet essentials.
September marked the arrival of adidas Originals by JENNIE, her first co-designed collection with the brand and adidas’ largest bet on K-pop yet. Rather than simply slapping her name on a Samba, JENNIE has taken some of adidas' most recognizable codes – tracksuits, the Superstar, sportswear functionality – and reimagined them to fit into her own wardrobe. Her Superstars have gone to ballet class, while ribbons, bodysuits and leg warmers ooze with off-duty cool.
Long before receiving her own collection, she had become a recurring presence in the adidas Originals universe, appearing in global campaigns alongside her BLACKPINK co-stars from 2018 until 2023. Her solo contract continued, pulling her die-hard fandom towards the Three Stripes. Most recently, she joined adidas' Spring 2026 Superstar campaign alongside a star-studded cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Kendall Jenner, Lamine Yamal, Baby Keem, James Harden and Olivia Dean.
Her debut collection is built around the concept of “Functional Grace.” JENNIE approached adidas' athletic heritage through ballet, using the discipline's combination of softness and physical strength as a starting point. The resulting collection includes reworked track jackets and pants, wrap skirts, knit cardigans, sheer bodysuits and leggings, fleece hoodies, leg warmers and cut-out socks – as if adidas left the doors to its hidden dance studio wide open.
The clearest expression of JENNIE's influence arrives at the feet. The Superstar SQ Ballet takes one of adidas' most recognizable sneakers and reimagines the silhouette, starting with its iconic shell toe. The familiar Superstar is reshaped through the language of a ballet pointe shoe, replacing its rounded attitude with a squared outline and adding delicate ribbon detailing. Premium leather and a lambskin lining soften things further, while removable laces allow the shoe to shift personalities.
Ballet references have been circling fashion for several seasons, but JENNIE's interpretation avoids simply attaching a bow to a sneaker and declaring it “balletcore.” Instead, the wider collection considers the physical vocabulary of dance: wrapping, layering, movement, restraint and the contrast between delicacy and strength. The accompanying “Cosmic Ballerina: Kinematics” campaign places her in a surreal environment inspired by outer space, where weightlessness turns movement into the central visual language. JENNIE described wanting the collection to bring ballet's softness and control, while inserting contrast through “endless and unknown space.”
Just four days before her adidas collection arrived, JENNIE released ‘Fallen Angel’, a three-track digital EP featuring “FALLEN ANGEL,” “HEAVEN” and “Less than a Lover.” OA Entertainment described the project as coming from a particularly personal place and representing her “truest self-expression.”
The timing makes her adidas collaboration land that much stronger. ‘Fallen Angel’ and “Functional Grace” aren't companion projects, but they occupy similar territory and relay messages of softness and power. More importantly, both arrive during a chapter in which JENNIE appears increasingly determined to control the worlds around her.
It can be said that JENNIE is the strongest K-ambassador that luxury, streetwear, and lifestyle brands could ask for. At Chanel, she has helped make the house’s tweed, pearls and ladylike codes feel considerably younger. With Gentle Monster, the relationship went even further: Jentle Home, Jentle Garden and Jentle Salon transformed her from campaign star into repeat eyewear collaborator. adidas is the latest, and perhaps clearest, evolution of that power. After years as an ambassador, she is now officially a co-designer, taking something as culturally loaded as the Superstar and reshaping it through her vision of ballet and femininity.
‘Fallen Angel’ and adidas Originals by JENNIE mutually thrive on contradiction. The collection’s “Functional Grace” pairs ballet’s softness with athletic strength, while ‘Fallen Angel’ twists similarly delicate imagery into something darker and more vulnerable. One gives us a Cosmic Ballerina floating upward, and the other, a descending angel. Together, they reveal the creative language defining JENNIE’s current solo era: she is both soft and powerful, while remaining artistically vulnerable without ever slipping into fragility. Fashion and music may be separate canvases, but JENNIE is increasingly painting the same world across both.