Japanese Ink Techniques Inspire the Adidas Y-3 US Open Collection
Japanese Ink Techniques Inspire the Adidas Y-3 US Open Collection
By Tim NewcombAugust 15, 2025

Images courtesy of adidas.

Images courtesy of adidas.
Adidas and Yohji Yamamoto have reunited for another tennis partnership for the US Open. Y-3, as the collaboration is called, is a 2003-born adidas partnership with Japanese designer Yamamoto for tennis, this time featuring 18 pieces that will be worn on and off court in New York by athletes such as Jessica Pegula, Iva Jovic, Stefanos Tsitsipas, and Jakub Mensik. The new collection, which includes footwear, apparel, and accessories for matches and training, highlights the thematic direction of Y-3’s fall/winter 2025 collection, with art inspired by the Japanese ink techniques of Suibokuga, the traditional ink-and-water Japanese monochrome painting. The asymmetric graphic pairs with the apparel’s straight lines, with hero pieces including what Y-3 calls a “WOW Dress” for women and the Y-3 Tennis “FreeLift” T-shirt for men, both with splashes of ink-style patterns adorning the corners of the pieces. Heavy in black and white, the collection does include some color, with the ink pattern featuring some amber and purple. And the Y-3 treatment takes over the entire adidas tennis footwear line—including the Defiant Speed 2, Avacourt 2, Adizero Ubersonic 5, and Adizero Cybersonic 2—stylizing the shoes mostly in black and white, though there is an orange Barricade 13. Perhaps not surprisingly, adidas calls the collection a “unique approach to tennis aesthetics.”