MILAN — Simone Bellotti has added another key piece to the back-to-the-roots strategy of his Jil Sander tenure — one that is sure to strike a nostalgic chord.
The OTB-controlled brand is relaunching the King sneaker style it first developed with Puma in 1998, in a pioneering collaboration between a fashion house and a performance sport company that helped mark the beginning of luxury sneakers and pave the way for fashion and sport crossovers.
On Tuesday, the King Avanti sneakers will hit a selection of 80 international Jil Sander stores and the brand’s e-commerce. The style is known for drawing inspiration from soccer lace-up shoes, pushing them into an elevated and fashion-forward direction. Available in a limited series and priced at 480 euros, the navy unisex design crafted from leather comes with clean lines, a distinctive statement tongue flap with the Puma logo and the Jil Sander one rendered in golden foiling on the side.
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It is understood this is only the first drop of an ongoing program, as a second installment is scheduled for March.
The longer-term commitment is also in sync with the approach the two companies had in the original iteration of their tie-up. After the initial launch in 1998, the two parties released several sneaker styles throughout the early 2000s, many of which anticipated current trends — such as slim-soled designs — and winked to different sports, from cycling to wrestling.
In an interview with WWD in 2023, Puma’s vice president of creative direction and innovation Heiko Desens singled out Jil Sander as a game changer for the brand and had already expressed his personal wish to bring back the collaboration. “There are very young people who weren’t even born when we launched our collaboration who ask about it, so it would be amazing,” he said at the time.
The revival of the collaboration with Puma closely follows the unveiling of Bellotti’s debut collection during Milan Fashion Week last month. For the occasion, Bellotti brought the brand back to its historic show space inside its headquarters for the first time since 2017.
Previously, the designer teased his vision with a moody music video shot in Hamburg, where founder Heidemarie Jiline “Jil” Sander launched the label in 1968.