"Welcome To The Amazing Mostro Show," PUMA's Carnival-Inspired, Footwear-First NYFW Runway
The German sportswear label reimagined New York’s Park Avenue Armory as a funfair to celebrate the return of its archival Mostro sneakers.
On Thursday evening, Eartheater’s ethereal vocals summoned New Yorkers inside the historical Park Avenue Armory, where fashion week commenced on amusement park grounds, courtesy of PUMA. The German sportswear label transformed the theater into a circus, complete with flying swings, a ferris wheel and (well, parts of) a rollercoaster. “Welcome To The Amazing Mostro Show,” read signage at the the entrance to the affair. Industry heads, professional glitterati, selfie-taking influencers and mainstream celebrities (think Emily Ratajkowski, Davido and Becky G) took to their assigned bleacher seats around the spectacle, in the hundreds. Welcoming, it was.
The event served as the welcome-back party for the brand’s Mostro sneaker, a sightly footwear creation known for its spiked sole and versatile strap closure, that originally launched in 1999. The silhouette’s name comes from the Italian word for “monster,” a quite fitting moniker for the eye-attracting shoe’s multi-faceted design. “It’s a weird shoe, to be honest,” PUMA’s creative director, Heiko Desens, told Hypebeast backstage. “It’s so different to any other sneaker on the market.” The amusement park’s washed-out mood was meant to mimic the sneaker’s unusual appearance, he said.
The 20th-century footwear model, in a kaleidoscopic array of colors, offered the foundation for 56 looks on PUMA’s runway. Styled by Alastair McKimm and Desens, the line included a mixture of custom and commercial pieces from the imprint’s forthcoming Fall/Winter 2024 collections, each of which served to complement the shoe.
PUMA’s sportswear operated on a dominantly neutral color palette of navy, grey, black and white. Inventive, form-fitting tops paired with roomy tracksuit bottoms, while avant-garde bodysuits tucked into similarly spacious trousers. Hooded windbreakers and shiny track jackets were often the go-to outerwear shapes. Many were done in signature nylon or cotton materials; however, a slew of plush and metallic iterations championed PUMA’s desire for experimentation.
Elsewhere, the line housed a number of bespoke, racing-inspired silhouettes, made in collaboration with BMW, Ferrari and Porsche. The engine-revving theme was bolstered by a selection of thick gloves, face-shielding glasses and show-stopping, crystal-covered helmets. It was in the accessories that PUMA had the most fun, expressed Desens. Bowling ball bags were made gargantuan; gym sacks had enough space for a weekend trip, and baseball caps were equipped with shrunken visors — all in the name of Mostro.
“This is for the consumers who feel a little tired,” Desens explained. “They have experienced fatigue around the uniform that has dominated sportswear for the last 15 years.” PUMA’s latest line is meant to be consumed like a shot of espresso, waking up the brand’s “new-age consumer” and putting a pep in their step on their path “toward something more individualistic,” he concluded.
See all of the looks from PUMA’s “Welcome To The Amazing Mostro Show” in the gallery above, and stay tuned to Hypebeast for more New York Fashion Week coverage.
