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PUMA SHADOW SOCIETY COLLECTION – R698 & ZDC82
[ THE DROP DATE ]
For their entrance into the world of trainer collaborations last year, the Shadow Society collective did a great job focusing on the much coveted, and loved, PUMA States. Bringing together this well-thought-out project, the Society is now regarded as the purveyor of the brands most anticipated releases, and one that gives you dope little lace bags, containing never just one, but two premium colour-matched lace flips.
The Society isn’t just a hypescreen for a couple of overworked designers who’ve been asked to throw together something cool by the weekend, whilst cramming 14 hours of deadline work into 10, on a Thursday. There’s other people in the mix, people with an affiliation to the brand, who actually give a damn about working to continually retain it’s heritage, whilst steering it calmly through the waters of progress.
The R698 have been carefully handled, a breathable mesh upper, with premium suede overlays giving it the armour it deserves. The Trinomic technology that PUMA introduced into the ’90s trainer-tech boom remains as solid as it did back then, and sits firmly encased in its EVA sole, finished off with an always welcome, translucent gum outsole.
The ZDC82 is a lesser known sibling of the PUMA Archive fam, and made its first appearance back in 1982 as an outdoor trainer. Sporting a slightly more cushioned midsole than the rest of the field, it was quickly adopted by joggers and athletes alike. Again we see a durable suede overlay to the upper, which appears to be a thick weave canvas along with an embossed leather form stripe. Both solid block colourways are finished off with brighter accents running through the D strip eyelets and around the collar lining.
The Burgundy / Gold colourway of the R698 stands out as the big bro of the quartet for us. That said, the Grape / Aqua does have a more sophisticated look to its make-up, so it’s definitely a tricky choice if you decide to make it… or you could always just pick up both.
There’s also a small apparel line to compliment the footwear, which will be unveiled together at the launch to celebrate the project, a few days before the scheduled Drop Date of Saturday 24th November 2012. We’re lucky enough to be hotfooting it along so we’ll bring you a solid round up of the nights proceedings as soon as we get pen to paper, well fingers to keyboard, the morning after the Shadow Society night before.
And as always, we’ll get the confirmed list of UK Stockists up on our RELEASES page as soon as we have it. Hold tight.
