In honour of the exciting launch of our Saucony Originals x Offspring Shadow 6000 trainers, we hosted an exclusive Saucony party at our Offspring Commercial Street store in East London.
The store was rammed with photographers, magazine editors, bloggers and trainer fans to celebrate this exclusive launch and get a preview of our limited Shadow 6000.
While we were enjoying some hip hop beats played by club kid Siobhan Bell and mingling with fellow sneakerheads we caught up with our very own Aman Tak from the buying team who designed the models with Saucony.
Q&A with Aman (Buyer/Designer at Offspring
What was the inspiration and thought process behind the collaboration?
The inspiration was drawn from combination of factors. Trekking through some of Saucony’s archive imagery it was evident, like most early ’80s running brands, neons, turquoises, pinks were prevalent on some aspect of footwear in that era. This formed the basis of the key focal points of this collab, the side spots, speckled sole and the box. Then we looked at more modern performance product and the use of 3M reflective hits for safety which spawned the idea of a full reflective tongue.
The slogan ‘running since..96’ was inspired by the ‘We Run’ motto found on Saucony’s performance boxes. This was a way of us paying homage to both the brand and to our original OFFSPRING store which opened its doors in 1996 on Covent Garden’s Neal Street. A store I subsequently worked at many moons ago. This also inspired the grey based colour way as Covent Garden, to me, evokes images of the cobbled streets and the large paving stones of the piazza so we tried to incorporated this too.
How do you feel Saucony fits with the Offspring brand?
We have always prided ourselves on looking outside of the regular top 4/5 brands and are continually on the hunt to expand our brand portfolio with ‘alternative’ brands and I think Saucony fits perfectly in that mould. They offer our consumers an alternative to other brands, maintaining a high level of quality not to mention their deep rooted heritage in performance and lifestyle. They have an immense loyal following globally and with our key touch points around the country we have been able to connect with these guys with our inline offering and now with this collaboration.
Saucony is synonymous with running and the Shadow 6000 is a brilliant example of their unique style. What made you decide on the Shadow 6000?
There have been some amazing collabs on this model from some top global partners in recent times so it was an opportunity to make our mark on this iconic shoe. Hopefully we have done the Saucony following proud
Without giving too much away, can we expect any more exciting collaborations?
Without giving away too much we have a few locked in, some with sports brands and some outside of those. Keep your eyes peeled
What trainers are you getting excited about for the summer?
There’s a lot to choose from, but from Saucony specifically there are some great Luxe Packs using hi grade materials and the collaboration product from the likes of Bait, Premier & Bodega is pretty exciting. A promising year for the brand as a whole I think.
This exclusive collaboration will be available from all Offspring stores nationwide from 10am Saturday 5th of April, and on www.offspring.co.uk from Monday 7th April at 8am.
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