In level 1 lockdown, a semblance of ‘beforeness’ has settled and we’ve began to ease into what the kids are calling the ‘new normal’. Let me start off by saying that I hate this, however much I love connotation (and I really love connotation). I’ve had a bone to pick with this saying for a while and I wondered how I could encourage people to move on from this idea of a second-rate reality. I wanted to play on embracing the now, and moving forward rather than simply tolerating the current version of the present.
So when PUMA reached out to me to work on a social media partnership for the new Cruise Rider, I was excited to blend the two. I began conceptualizing the shoot for Move Different, which I roped photographer Paige Fiddes and artist Bushy Wopp in on.
As a brand I’ve always associated PUMA with dynamicity and evolution. The Rider pack specifically speaks to movement and adaption, reflected in the 80’s design remixed in multiple versions for now. The design, PUMA breaks down, “celebrates the ways we connect and engage in a fast-paced, constantly changing world”. It’s a pop of colour, it’s eye-catching, and tbh it’s cushy af (my feet have never felt so lovingly enveloped by a shoe sole). A damn pleasure to move in, imo.
By featuring dynamic and constant, big movement in the poses and video as well as mixing Paige’s photography with Bushy’s bright and loud illustrations I wanted to illustrate a sense of freedom and space that has felt alien to many of us. I wanted to sybmolize breaking free from this idea that we are limited. Although we have been and are still in some ways, there is abundance and opportunity always- sometimes it’s harder to find or define when things are tough (And boy have they been tough). That is, in comparison.
But instead of comparing the old normal to the new normal, I wanted to illustrate that it’s time to step into an new idea of now entirely. Because when put under new circumstances, it becomes imperative to think and bend and meld and create in a new way. And that’s what ‘Gotta move different if you want different’ means to me.