Spherical Jackets? Light-Sensitive Sneakers? Meet Anrealage x PUMA
LVMH Prize-nominated Anrealage does collaborations like no one else. In so many other cases, that kind of descriptor sounds like pure hyperbole. It's justified in this case however, as anyone familiar with Anrealage's work would know.
If you aren't familiar, well, just look at what Anrealage did with PUMA — I can guarantee you've never seen anything quite like this.
The collaborative layering pieces are inspired by Anrealage's "Ball Project" clothing line, wherein designer Kunihiko Morinaga transforms conventional layering pieces like shirts and trench coats into 3D spheres. The resulting garments can be worn normally despite their asymmetric seams and warped hems, but the real magic happens when you take them off, fasten them, and then fold into the shape of a ball.
It's crazy, it's superfluous, and it's indicative of Morinaga's pattern-making mastery. This motif has carried over to previous collaborations and even taken different shapes — Amazon box trench coat, anyone?
The designer repeated the trick for his shapeshifting PUMA collection, available now on Anrealage's website. There, you'll see the warped outerwear, deceivingly simply jackets, and T7 track pants with distorted waistbands, another Anrealage signature.
Speaking of Anrealage signatures, actually, Morinaga is as fascinated by light-sensitive textiles as he is by dynamic pattern-making. Anrealage collections commonly include apparel that reveals an intricate pattern only when they're hit by the UV light.
This element appears atop the aforementioned PUMA jackets, T-shirts and two pairs of sneakers, the PUMA Variant Nitro and Fast-R.
You know how designers sometimes cut corners when designing a collaboration or simply opt to slap two logos together and call it a day? Not Anrealage.
Take its seemingly simple PUMA T-shirts, for instance. See that seam that divides the two panels on the tees? It's cut at a 23.4-degree angle in reference to the Earth's axis, the crux of all light and dark on the planet.
That's the kind of painstakingly thoughtful stuff that's garnered Anrealage the attention of LVMH and labels like Fendi
