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NEW YORK, United States — In 1968, German sportswear giant Puma launched its Roma 1968 sneaker to honour the Italian national football team's UEFA European Football Championship win and hosting. Now, almost five decades later, it is reissuing the model with Tomas Maier.
The resulting sneaker is minimal in design and colour, and features the German designer's signature palm tree motif. It will retail for $150 and will be limited to just 200 pairs, to be sold online, at Tomas Maier stores and select retailers in early September.
“This shoe collaboration reflects a period of design I enjoy still today as well as a modern, minimalistic approach that I always try to bring to the products in our brand,” says Maier, who this year celebrates the 20th anniversary of his namesake label and has recently launched global shipping for his e-commerce website.
“We hope to continue to grow the brand organically, just as we have done over the last 20 years. Collaborations are definitely a large part of it,” Maier tells BoF. “Puma is very dynamic about doing collaborations and so are we. As we share a parent company [Kering], meeting up and deciding to collaborate was fairly organic.”
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Known initially for his beachwear, in 2013 Tomas Maier signed a deal with Kering to expand his US-based brand, with the intention of growing the advanced-contemporary label. Maier is still best known however for his creative directorship of Bottega Veneta, and his role in Bottega Veneta’s rapid rise from second-tier house to the very pinnacle of luxury, taking in over $1 billion in sales annually.
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