ASICS Taps Awake NY's Angelo Baque to Helm Its Newest "The ASICS Collective" Collaborations Initiative

ASICS is gearing up to broaden its collaborative actions with a brand new initiative titled The ASICS Collective. This project is helmed by Awake NY’s founder and creative director Angelo Baque and will entail a series of collaborations with industry creatives that will roll out in the latter half of 2021 and throughout 2022.

Four partners have been summoned for this strategy, and they are Tremaine Emory, the founder of Denim Tears and co-founder of No Vacancy Inn; Spanto, the founder of Los Angeles streetwear label BornxRaised; Renell Medrano, a notable photographer who comes from the Bronx; and Jess Gonsalves, the co-founder of NYC’s popular vintage haven Procell. “This project is an opportunity for me to bring some of my closest friends together and challenge them to design something new, something outside of their general wheelhouse,” says Baque. “Tremaine, Spanto, Jess and Renell are all members of my creative community. They continuously push boundaries in their respective industries and serve as inspirations for me in my own life. I’m excited for everyone to see their ideas come to fruition.”

Each of these participants will have the opportunity to design their own collaborative sneaker, the first of which will be Tremaine Emory who has willingly lent his creative touch to a duo of ASICS GEL-MC PLUS colorways. This pair will be crafted alongside his Denim Tears imprint and is inspired by the summers he spent growing up in Harlem, GA. Each take is designed to call out the red clay that blemished Emory’s kicks when he would often play outside on Harlem’s unpaved, red clay roads. The Denim Tears x ASICS GEL-MC PLUS capsule is slated to launch on September 28 via Denim Tears and globally on October 15. Spanto, Medrano and Gonsalves’ sneakers will be hit the market over the course of 2022.

For more footwear news, be sure to check out ASICS’ latest GEL-LYTE III “Azure Blue” release.