Inside Steven Mena’s Most Personal Design Yet—an adidas Superstar Dedicated to His Mother

Steven Mena’s work has consistently been shaped by personal experience, and his latest project with adidas continues in that direction. Rather than approaching it as a typical collaboration, Mena uses the opportunity to reflect on the people and moments that have influenced his path.

The project centers on themes that have been present in his work for years — family, upbringing, and perspective. Each decision ties back to something specific, with a focus on meaning.

That mindset also carries into how he views the moment itself. For Mena, the significance of the project sits more in the process and what it represents than in its outcome, keeping the focus on intention rather than reception.

In the conversation below, Steven Mena speaks on the ideas behind the project — the "Old Rose" Superstar" — the role of family in his work, and how he approaches storytelling through design.

House of Heat°: The “Old Rose” color is rooted in your mom’s favorite flower. Beyond color, what other details in the shoe carry her story or reflect her influence on your journey?

Steven Mena: The Mattress-inspired sock liner is another detail inspired by her and her journey. When my parents first got to the U.S., they shared a small apartment in South Central with other families…everybody packed in together, just trying to make it work. Even after that, there were times when my mother and I had to move around, sleeping on different mattresses of someone else's house. So it's really an intentional creative choice to make the sock-liner look like this, that vulnerable moment of laying your head down after a long day came to mind.

The patch-like work throughout the shoe is a detail inspired by the journeys of both my parents. It's really a shoe inspired by my family's journey. These stories of them trying to survive and figure it out, or making the hard decision to leave everything behind because they wanted a better life for their kids, are inspiring, sad, scary, and filled with pride and survival. It's a hard thing to explain unless you've been there or unless you've sat at a kitchen table and heard it firsthand from somebody who lived it. Every stitch, every panel, every choice on this shoe is me trying to honor that. My mom is at the heart of this one forsure, it's her favorite color, her story, her spirit stitched into every detail. But this shoe holds all of them. My grandmas, my granddad’s whom I never got the chance to meet (RIP), my uncles, and everybody who sacrificed something so I could be standing here today.

Don't worry though, Pops is getting his moment too…stay tuned for Father's Day.

You've mentioned calling your mom from adidas HQ, what was that moment like emotionally?

It felt like everything I'd always dreamed of and I knew I deserved it. It was simple for me: smack in the middle of this big design room that adidas had laid out for me (with a bunch of color options), I gave my mom a call, let her know what was going on, and asked her her favorite color. After that, I simply told adidas thank you for providing some options but that under no circumstance was I not going to make a pink shoe. Done, no questions asked.

A lot of these moments are emotional. There's an inside joke with the adidas team whenever I'm putting together a creative project…like, alright, I'll try not to get teary-eyed this time, haha. I guess whenever I deal with my family, it's a strong emotional connection.

This project is clearly very personal. At what point did you realize this collaboration needed to be centered around your mother, and how did that shift the way you approached the design?

I made up my mind about something like this a long time ago.

Acknowledging the sacrifices my family has made on my behalf never goes over my head and it's something I carry with me every single day. Not just my mom, but my dad, my brothers, my uncles, my aunts, my grandparents, cousins, family friends…the list goes on. I'm only here, being interviewed by you, with a release alongside one of the biggest brands on planet Earth because somebody a long time ago decided to (literally) put their life on the line and make the journey to the U.S. How could I ever fail or give up? So when the opportunity came, there wasn't really a moment of deciding it was more like finally having the platform to say what I'd been holding onto my whole life. That shifted everything about how I approached the design. Every creative choice had to mean something. No detail could just be there because it looked cool, it had to earn its place in the story.

What does success look like for this project: sell-out, cultural impact, or something more personal?

Perspective is everything.

For me, success was the moment I held that first sample in my hands and saw my family's story stitched into something real. Anything beyond that, the sell-through, the press, the people lacing them up around the world, is a blessing on top of a blessing. If the shoe resonates and somebody out there feels seen because of it then that's the cultural impact I care about. The rest takes care of itself.

You know, it's funny in this game, we usually get hung up on ourselves if things don't pan out the way we envisioned them in our minds, if our posts don't go over a certain threshold of likes, stuff like that. I always like to tell people: imagine you had 100 people outside your house right now cheering you on, listening to what you have to say…that's what you're tripping about when your post doesn't hit the numbers you wanted.

What goals — personally, creatively, and for MENACE — are you hoping to achieve over the next 10 years?

I would love to open up a retail store. It's something we've been mulling over internally at the brand and trying to make the right moves to make happen. Apart from that, remain consistent in our delivery of quality products. I pride myself on making clothes that can end up being your favorite anything in your closet.

I would also love to direct a movie. Everything MENACE has ever put out creatively in terms of a video has been directed and written by myself, and I've really been honing my skills as a storyteller. I'm happy that I've expanded my palette to get these stories out.

Outside of that, I want to keep building MENACE into something that outlives the moment kind of like a brand that people pass down, that ends up in the back of someone's closet years from now and still hits the same. Creatively, I want to keep taking swings at things I haven't done before. Comfort zones don't really interest me. And on a personal level, I just want to make sure the people who've been here from day one like my family, my team, and the customers who took a chance on us early feel like they grew with me, not behind me.

If you had 15 seconds to tell the world one thing, what would it be?

I always like to tell people it's okay.

We take ourselves way too seriously sometimes in this world, and in this game in particular, worrying about things beyond our control. I'll tell them one thing my parents always like to say: "Todo tiene solución menos la muerte," and, "Si Dios lo permite"...that means "Everything has a solution except death," and "God willing."

It's true.

Chill out. It's going to be okay. Look at me; it's been 13 years, and I'm just now getting a shoe deal. Your time will come. Keep your head down, keep doing the work, and stop measuring yourself against somebody else's timeline. The people who are meant to find you will find you. Trust that.

To mark the release, adidas Originals and MENACE will host a one-day Mother’s Day pop-up flower shop in Los Angeles on May 9, inviting the community to celebrate the women who raised them. The first 100 attendees who arrive with a loved one will receive complimentary flowers and access to a buy-one, gift-one offer on the “Old Rose” adidas Superstar, alongside select food, drinks, and limited-edition apparel.

The adidas Originals x MENACE Superstar “Old Rose” will retail for $180 and release on May 10, 2026, via the adidas CONFIRMED app and the MENACE website.

For more on adidas, make sure to checkout the upcoming Puerto Rico Adistar Control 5 collab.