PUMA CLYDE ‘SAMPLE’
ART NUMBER: 348439 04
MADE ON:
MADE IN: CHINA
FACTORY:
When brands design and develop new products, they’ll regularly make several samples through the process to judge aesthetics, materials and to be sure that a concept on paper or screen is just as good once made in to a physical product. Samples within the footwear industry are fairly common, but not usually seen by the general public. They can often be dropped for a different design or re-worked for the final product. What happens to those sample pairs after is sometimes a mystery, but this is one example from the Bringback Clyde collection of 2009.
At a time when the Clyde saw regular good quality releases, PUMA made a pack of tonal coloured shoes with matching laces. The Bringback pack featured coloured shoes including Blue, Grey, Yellow and this is a Green sample of that release. The Green colour Is very similar and reminiscent of their notorious boxes from the past.
The tonal colour of the upper, formstipe and laces may seem like a simple concept; but the simple things are usually the easiest to get wrong and these are far from that. The colour stands out even more as it’s only offset by the white of the sole and interior leather lining.
The final released versions look almost identical to these, but as there’s nothing wrong with the samples there wouldn’t have been any reason to change or alter them. These and the other colours from the Bringback pack are proof that you don’t need fancy gimmicks, trendy colour blocking or hyped to produce and we’ll executed shoes.
Photography: errol
Text: Professor B
