Priya Ahluwalia's New PUMA Collab Is a Love Letter to Community
We spoke to the designer to find out more about her latest collaboration and love of the beautiful game.
Football is about so much more than just sport. It possesses the ability to bring complete strangers together, to influence fashion trends and become something of a religion in certain families. It’s an experience that many of us have some form of connection to, some without even playing. Whether it’s watching games with family members, rooting for the women’s teams from the sidelines or trying a game with the kids down the street growing up, it’s something that all of us have likely had access to in our lives.
So when Priya Ahluwalia sat down with PUMA to design their next collection, the inspiration was clear. Off the back of the duo’s first team-up, which saw the designer reworking the classic PUMA Suede, the follow-up release was destined to be bigger and better, exploring Ahluwalia’s love of the beautiful game.
Revolving around the VS-1 silhouette and its sporting heritage, Ahluwalia looked to the world of football and its influence on community, from grassroots games to global aesthetics. As the full collection launches, we caught up with the designer to find out more about the process, the campaign and the not-so-secret follow-up.
Read on for the full interview and head to the PUMA website to shop the new collaboration.
You’re teaming up with PUMA for a second time, and it’s footwear, clothes and accessories. What can you tell us about the decision to work together again?
We always knew from the beginning we’d be doing at least two projects together, and it was always a part of the plan that I’d do a silhouette first, and then I’d get to a bigger collection. It’s really interesting to work with bigger companies, because their critical paths are much longer, and actually, the design of this collection started ages ago. We started working on it pretty much straight after I designed the first shoe. For the first drop, PUMA wanted me to look at the Suede silhouette, and for the second drop, there were a few more options, and the V-S1 was one of them. As you know, I love football, so I really wanted to do a take on that and then build the collection from there.
The campaign is described as a love letter to African football, and obviously, the footwear silhouettes are a big part of the collection. What’s been your experience of the sport over the years?
I’ve always been a football fan. I’ve supported Arsenal since coming out of my mother’s tummy, and we’re an Arsenal family. I remember growing up, my neighbors and I, and the kids that lived near me would play football in the street till the sun came down. I wasn’t particularly good at football, but I always found joy in it. I was much more into performing arts, but I’ve always found football fun.
Growing up, you played football with people, but you didn’t even know their names. I always found it to be this thing that really connected people, which I find really special. When this project came about, I was thinking about all the things that I love about it, and I think it’s really quite democratic, especially grassroots football; anyone can play it. People can get a ball and play wherever they are, whenever they want.
I love the community that is built around football. It’s quite tribal in a way that isn’t always the best, but it also brings people together from all creeds and backgrounds. I was more focused on what it does for the community and drew inspiration from a grassroots level for this collection.
It feels like it’s one of the few sports that almost everyone has had some experience of or connection to, right? What’s been like the creative process behind the collection? What was the first thing that you started with?
Because I knew from quite early on that I was doing the V-S1, I was thinking about the concept of football within community. I’d recently been to an Arsenal game, and when you’re at the stadium, you can see all the different Gooner community flags everywhere like the Nigerian Gooners and the Indian Gooners. I really loved how fandoms transcend the area that you’re in, and how someone on the other side of the world can have an affinity for a club. My family is an Arsenal family, but my dad supports Manchester United and he lives in Lagos. (We argue about it all the time.)
When you’re in Nigeria or Africa in general, you see football everywhere, and fans of football all across the continent. I was thinking about that feeling, about the aesthetic of that in the design process and about West Africa specifically. Then I was looking at like photography and art from the region, and photography of fans with their signs and crowds in the stands. That really led me to think about the color palette and the textures and the tones and the graphic application as well.
Do you have a favorite piece from the collection or one you’re really proud of?
I designed all of it, I’m proud of all of it! But I’m really excited to wear the trainers. I’m excited about the fact that I really delved into the Puma archive, and I think the result is such a nice marriage of the two brands. People will see this on the street and know it’s Ahluwalia and PUMA. That’s something I’m really happy with. There are elements within the design and the color palette that I think feel quite heartwarming to people from the Global South.
I think people will see it and feel an affinity for it, because it really was about them. African athletes dominate sports, and I don’t know that they necessarily get the best celebration for that. So it feels like a love letter to how much sport can change people’s lives, and how much it builds community.
How do you ensure that the collaborations you do are balanced in terms of branding and what comes through, and that there’s not too much of one or the other?
I think the privilege of being able to collaborate like this is that we’re asked to do it because brands trust us. That first of all leads to a really open atmosphere, and I think it was one of the easiest design processes I’ve ever experienced. It was so nice because I got to go to Germany. I was in the archive for hours, and then we literally all sat down together, and I was sketching with the team. It was quite fast, but like, we were bouncing our ideas back and forth in real life. It just felt very natural.
I think that the job of a collaborator is to push. If you’re a smaller brand, I think your job as a collaborator is to push a bigger brand out of its comfort zone and get it to do something that feels true to the brand and the essence of it. I really wanted to be quite sporty for this campaign, which is not really something we’ve done at Ahluwalia here before. I actually loved the Puma slogan, “Forever faster.” I just think it’s so chic, and that’s why I put it on the back of the shirt. It’s a really great mantra, and I wanted to capture that feeling in the campaign.
How do you feel about the growing influence of sport in fashion? Does it feel like something that’s a trend and something that’s happening right now? Or do you think it’s like a long-term, actually evolving relationship?
I think it’s long-term, and I think it’s evolving. The influence of sport in fashion has always been there, but it’s been a class issue, because when I grew up, and I was living in South London, and I lived on an estate, everyone dressed very much for sport. Sport affected people’s daily wardrobe; people wore sporty things. That was what it was like for people with certain socioeconomic backgrounds. Sport has always been a thing.
I think the difference is that footballers were not necessarily seen as style icons before, but they are now, because the world’s more connected, they’ve got a digital footprint and they’ve got stylists. Football is more influential now, and player profiles are getting more public. You’re not just a footballer anymore. It would be, it would be silly for fashion not to link with that, because they’re so influential.
For us as a brand, we’ve always supported athletes in all different sports. We’ve always got a few athletes on the front row. Even though this collection is all about more of a grassroots feeling, I find athletes to be some of the most inspirational people in the world. We recently dressed Amber Anning, and we dressed Gabby Thomas at the Met Gala last year. When you ask them what their schedule is like, it’s just bananas. Amber was telling me that she sprints every day, and she trains for at least four hours every day. Like, what are you talking about?! That’s crazy. That pure dedication to something, I find it incredible. I think lots of people could learn something from that.
Final question, can we expect a part three from Puma and Ahluwalia? What kind of direction do you think the next collaboration would take? If there was one? Would you already have it?
Working on it… I think that’s all I can say for now, but we’re working on it. What direction will it take? Haven’t decided yet.
