This season, New York Fashion Week has become one of the buzziest that the Big Apple has seen in a while. The schedule has been filled with some of the biggest names in fashion, and one highlight from the week was undoubtedly Puma. It marked the brand’s first NYFW show since its Fenty collaboration in 2017, and the return couldn’t come at a better time as the brand nears its 75th anniversary.
Puma’s creative director June Ambrose mobilized her “Juniverse” when deciding how to celebrate the monumental moment, and in typical June fashion, it was go big or home. “It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, we’re going to do a runway show and design a collection for the runway show,'” she told GRAZIA USA. “It was more, ‘Let’s make this a brand moment.’ We discussed a few ideas, and they kept getting bigger and bigger, and here we are,” she said with a laugh.
To prepare her final lineup for the show, she referenced the phrase, “Life is a sport.”
“This is the motto I have gone by since starting at the brand,” Ambrose said. “I’m not an athlete. My sport is style. I think everybody, no matter what you do in life, everything that we do is a sport. The physicalness, everything we have to accomplish to get from start to finish, takes a lot of energy. We need to have stability and clothes that match that.”
The show, titled Futrograde, references the past coming back again, mixed with Puma’s futuristic innovation. The show featured a selection of looks from both current and upcoming seasons, as well as custom pieces curated by Ambrose. The show paralleled with a virtual metaverse experience which took attendees on an immersive journey through Puma’s past, present, and future. “When I first looked back in the archive, I saw collaborations with Alexander McQueen, Jil Sander, and other amazing high fashion collaborations we were doing in the early 2000s,” Ambrose said. “Not that many people know us for those, and I want Puma to re-enter that conversation.”
Ambrose’s 30 years in the game working on editorials and in the music video space with legendary rappers like Jay-Z and Missy Elliott, has allowed her to witness an eclipse of nostalgic streetwear that was brazen, unapologetic, and bold, make its way into the luxury high-fashion market.
“It’s all rooted in street culture, hip-hop, and all things that initially felt like it was secular, in a sense,” said Ambrose. “Early in my career, I would take sportswear silhouettes and mix them with luxury fabrics, i.e., Missy Elliot’s leather tracksuit on top of a hill with Puma California retro sneakers, but that was unheard of then, now streetwear is fully in the high-fashion space, and has become such a global phenomenon.”
Along with her first co-branding collab with the label, Ambrose expanded the boundaries of luxury fashion by combining tradition and innovation also presented collaborations with AC Milan, Dapper Dan, Koche, MMQ, Palomo Spain, and PAM. From the iconic Harlem designer to the Parisian genderfluid label, the eclectic mix pulled from the brand’s DNA spliced with Puma’s cool factor to create an enriching experience altogether. And thanks to the parallel metaverse space Black Station, you can experience it again and again via the digital show experience available at Blackstation.puma.com.
