Puma revamps sports heritage icons for AW14 lifestyle line

09 Aug '14

3 min read

PUMA’s Formstrip has not slowed down since it first hit the ground running 65-years ago. Whether it was on pitch, off court or track and field, the Formstrip has been defined by the athletic greats of the past who fuelled their personalities and momentum behind the PUMA brand.

For this season’s Autumn-Winter Lifestyle collection, PUMA journeys back to its archive and looks to those sporting icons who left a lasting legacy on the Brand’s history, to inspire the future. With a focus on PUMA’s tennis and running past, heritage styles that were once filed as ‘the first’ and ‘the only’ are now revived and refreshed with material updates, altered in style, reissued with original performance technology and made authentic for today’s generation of future legends.

Beginning on court, PUMA entered the tennis world soon after the company was first established. In the 70s and 80s, the Brand released an array of tennis shoes, such as the PUMA Match, Court Star, Advantage and Wimbledon: all white leather, high quality materials, occasional coloured Formstrips and soles that conformed to the foot once broken in.

In AW ’14, PUMA introduces a select range of cutting-edge collaborations with underground design houses like BWGH, House of Hackney, Sophia Chang and Mihara Yasuhiro. These edgy statement pieces lend a fresh and experimental angle to PUMA’s Fall Collection.

As design and innovation in running products exploded in the 90s, PUMA added to the Visible Technology movement and introduced Trinomic cushioning element. This technology featured clear rubber hexagon cells in a specific proprietary pattern or layout, which collapsed and expanded to provide performance benefits: cushioning, flexibility, and stability that helped boost the performance and aesthetic of runners, including Olympians Colin Jackson, Linford Christie, Heike Drechsler and Merlene Ottey.

Couple the technology with bright, bold and fluorescent colour accents and PUMA Trinomic brought running design product fast forward into the future, catching the competition off-guard with models like the PUMA Disc, XT1 Plus, and R698 Evo House of Hackney.

Celebrating this rich heritage in running, this season’s Lifestyle collection brings back those signature PUMA styles and timeless runners in original form. Key styles such as the Trinomic XS500 Rugged, Blaze of Glory Swift and XT1 Plus Winterized are modernised with lightweight materials, added mesh-and-foam mix and improved trail outsoles. The Trinomic Disc Wedge WR is a Women’s specific styles introduced to the PUMA Trinomic family and infused with innovative design systems like PUMA’s Disc technology.

Key apparel styles, like the Graphic Tee, Graphic Sweat and Printed Bomber, took graphic inspiration from the PUMA cat as seen on the cover of old 80s and 90s product catalogues, where the Icon MCS Track Jacket and Icon Windbreaker are reissued track designs from the 90s, freshened up and adapted for today’s street-inspired look.

This collection is a collision of sport and street, enhanced by iconic greats, performance, technology and style. It is fashioned for the next generation of titleholders who will reset the rules. The next sensation, the next trend, the next icon will not wait or hold back. Neither does PUMA’s latest Autumn-Winter 2014 collection.

PUMA

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