It was announced on Friday, February 29th, during Paris Fashion Week: Hussein Chalayan has been appointed Creative Director for Puma. This comes in a joint partnership, in which Puma have also acquired a majority stake in Chalayan’s London-based fashion business.
Chalayan thus becomes Puma’s first creative director, as well as the first fashion designer to be appointed as creative director of a major sports label. Alexander McQueen has already designed a range for Puma, and Stella McCartney had her collection for Adidas run on the catwalk of London Fashion Week ? but Chalayan will be a global director at Puma, taking on all product categories, from footwear to apparel and accessories.
The partnership certainly sounds promising, with Chalayan famously being an extremely eclectic mind who is always experimenting with new shapes and materials not commonly used in fashion. As Jochen Zeitz, CEO of Puma puts it: “Hussein Chalayan is a proven visionary in the fashion industry. As creative director, he will bring use of new technology, forward-thinking design and a provocative point of view to Puma.”
