Puma's Suede Strategy for Gen Z at Paris Fashion Week

PARIS — As Puma faces renewed speculation over a possible sale of the stake held by Artémis, the German sportswear group is under pressure to answer a familiar question confronting legacy brands: how to make itself feel culturally relevant again. The company revealed its answer during Paris Men’s Fashion Week. On Wednesday, the brand opened “Suede House,” a sprawling activation next door to its Paris offices designed to spotlight one of its longest-running footwear franchises. While Puma is not a fashion brand in the traditional sense, executives believe that showing up at fashion’s most covered cultural moment is a necessary step in rebuilding what the company has publicly acknowledged is a lack of visibility in the crowded shoe market. In its October earnings call, chief executive officer Arthur Hoeld said a lack of “brand heat” is a core challenge, and cited overextended product lines, excess inventory, and weak consumer interest in its legacy styles as factors holding the brand back. “We believe it’s a great opportunity where culture and fashion community gets together,” said chief brand officer Maria Valdes, describing Paris Fashion Week as “just the first step of many more to come.” The goal is not simply visibility, but building a new narrative around the brand. “Today you need to show up in the most important cultural moments, and Paris is one,” she said. The goal is to increase the Suede’s desirability without abandoning its sports DNA. “For us, it was important for us to recognize that icon, but then to give a sneak peek of the different cultures or subcultures we want to tap into during the seasons to come,” she said. The Paris activation is coupled with a broader corporate reset. Hoeld described 2026 as a “transition year,” following a significant slowdown in sales that had investors questioning the brand’s positioning amid intensifying competition from both performance-driven rivals and more fashion-forward sneaker labels. Inside Suede, the space doubled as a select showroom for fall 2026 product, while also functioning as an exhibition laying out the evolution of the “Suede” from its origins as a basketball shoe to its current iteration. Displays with flashing TVs and thumping music chart the shoe’s course from its debut at the 1968 Olympics, its NBA adoption in the 1970s, to its role on the feet of skateboarders and dancers throughout the decades. Artists including Samutaro, Welcome and 114 Index collaborated on the space. Beyond the venue, select Paris cafés such as Grave and Bigshot extend activations throughout the city. For Puma, the Suede franchise is a chance to generate buzz around the brand without just chasing fashion street cred for its own sake. “I wouldn’t say fashion is the only answer,” said Valdes. “When we say that we’re lacking brand heat, we need to become more relevant to the consumer.” Puma sees the convergence of fashion and sport as an opportunity. While attracts a fashion-facing audience, she stressed that other communities, including sports, music and local subculture are important to outreach to. That balancing act reflects a broader shift underway inside the company. One of the challenges Puma has identified is that product development, marketing and strategy have been operating in silos. “Just launching a shoe as a stand-alone is not a guaranteed success,” she said. Instead, the company is pushing toward an integrated model in which storytelling, distribution and timing are more aligned. Scarcity, a concept long embraced by streetwear and luxury brands, is also central to that approach, but Puma is careful to frame it as a type of curation. “I wouldn’t say that scarcity equals narrowing the product,” she said. Timing and placement will become more controlled so that launches are supported by well-paced consistent marketing, rather than flooding the market with new models all the time. The Suede House installation was less about selling and more about making a moment. While held during fashion week, the first day was open to influencers who were given plenty of corners in which to create content — complete with a mini basketball court — while the remaining days were open to the public. Suede House also previewed Puma’s collaboration strategy to hit multiple consumer categories. Among the partners visible in the showroom were the latest from the ongoing collaboration with Jil Sander, as well as A$AP Rocky, “who will play a role in the Suede franchise’s next chapter,” Valdes said. An additional “high fashion” collaboration is in the pipeline, but the name remains under wraps. The company also launched its spiky ballet flat-sneaker hybrid collab with LGN’s Louis Gabriel Nouchi on Thursday. The company will be careful not to saturate the fashion angle, Valdes said. A few high-profile names “will be enough for us to tap into that space.” The key will be to maintain a constant connection with consumers with installations such as Suede House, as well as local and regional collaborations. Physical retail remains another pillar of the strategy. Puma opened a flagship in London last year, positioning it as both a brand showcase and a community hub for hosting immersive activations with partners ranging from Hyrox to Aston Martin. There are no current plans for additional flagship openings in the near future, she added. With rivals like Nike, Adidas, On and Salomon are all vying for cultural relevance through similar playbooks that mix sport, fashion and community. Several of those brands have also descended on Paris this week and in recent seasons, highlighting how the fashion calendar has become a battleground for attention outside of established houses. But for Puma, Paris is only the start. Suede House is more of a kickoff for a year of activations planned across sports, music and other subcultures that are not connected to fashion “that equally or even more relevant for the Suede,” Valdes said. “There’s definitely other tactics and other representation…[Fashion] is one of them, but there are more nuances to this franchise. “We definitely see that the bandwidth and the versatility of the Suede allows you to have that ecosystem in a broader way.”