For Jil Sander Creative Director, Simone Bellotti, the return of the brand’s trailblazing PUMA partnership was a natural choice. The Italian designer resurrected the partnership in 2025, releasing the King Avanti just months after joining the house. Not only was the original collaboration an important milestone for Jil Sander, but for fashion as a whole. “When this collaboration started, I wasn’t able to buy those shoes,” Bellotti recalled during a virtual interview in late March. Widely understood as the first luxury sneaker collaboration, Jil Sander x PUMA debuted with the KING silhouette in 1998, releasing multiple models before pausing in 2006. Two decades later, luxury sneaker collaborations have become an integral tool in the machinery of fashion, bridging the gap between mass appeal and high design.
