Ottolinger creating a PUMA Mostro sneaker is a full-circle moment: “Where I went to school, it was one of the first sneakers everyone was really obsessed with,” Cosima Gadient, one-half of the Berlin-based brand, tells me on a video call from her studio. Her own childhood pair was a low-top model in black with contrasting white detailing.
After the Mostro trend fizzled out during her teenage years, she didn’t see the slim-profile, velcro-strapped sneaker again until she was exploring the PUMA archives with Christa Bösch, the other half of Ottolinger. The two immediately started reminiscing over the pairs they grew up wearing before they decided: “This shoe is iconic. We just need to do something with it.”
First, Ottolinger created a series of chunky boots that tap into PUMA’s heritage in auto-racing. Now, the two brands are back together, making Mostros, and launching a more expansive product range.
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The latest Ottolinger x PUMA Mostro release is an all-silver affair thanks to a mirrored leather fabric that the designers tell me was difficult to perfect, causing delays in getting the shoe from the runway onto shop floors. They’re now set to release on the Highsnobiety Shop on April 27.
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The selection includes two low-top pairs with spiky soles in contrasting red or yellow, and a thigh-high boot with the same spiked sole offered in black. Across all of the models, the fabric of the shoe is perforated with tiny holes pierced across the upper. To get all of the details that they wanted in these shoes, Bösch says she was emailing the PUMA team daily.
“We changed the lacing system on the high-top pair. We made it more intriguing, a bit more complicated because we love to work with straps,” says Gadient. “We pushed to make it as free and asymmetric as possible.”
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To go along with these silver, sci-fi-esque sneakers is an assortment of yoga wear, and it’s far from the minimal styles you’ll find at Lululemon. A trompe l'oeil suit and tie, metallic finishes, and what PUMA describes as “cyborg power suit prints,” cover the range of form-fitting sportswear.
“As a brand, we work a lot with prints. And we love the idea of going to the gym in a tie, so it's playing with these references,” says Gadient. “The clothing also has stereotypical superhuman references, which the shoes have too. It's almost like [a uniform that] you're going to save the world with.”
As a boundary-pushing independent label, Ottolinger has a subversive, unorthodox design language that’s integrated into this collection in a way that feels unfiltered, something you don’t always find when small independent labels team up with a sportswear giant. “Puma is a brand that always pushes boundaries,” says Bösch, adding that they benefited from the label’s willingness to experiment. “It's always a challenge because two universes collide and there's a lot of discussing [to be done]. But so far, in the end, it always worked out really well,” adds Gadient.
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At a time when there’s a lot of debate about what makes a successful collaboration, this is an example of a co-branded collection with substance: two designers re-imagining their childhood favorite shoe and embedding their DNA into PUMA’s sportswear.
