Puma announces the return of its partnership with Rihanna’s Fenty

“She’s back”: Puma’s press release published on March 1 regarding a new collaboration between the Felino and singer Rihanna’s Fenty brand boils down to these three words, pronounced by Arne Freundt, CEO of the German group. It’s a short sentence, but the gist is there. In 2023, the two partners relaunch a collaboration that has been important for both.

Sure, Rihanna recently “performed” at Super Bowl halftime with a pair of Salomon MM6Xs on her feet, but the pop star’s fashion notoriety is supported by her project with Puma. The first PumaXFenty collection appeared in 2015. At that time, the Feline was in trouble and trying to recover. Its boss, Bjorn Gulden, had initiated a repositioning based on two pillars. The first was to reconnect the brand to sports performance. The second was to enhance its sportstyle offer by signing lines that had personality. And Rihanna has become the leading figure in this latter strategy, first joining the brand in 2014 as an inspiring muse, then signing a first FentyXPuma collection for which she assumed the role of ‘artistic director’, carried out by a first show at New York Fashion Week in 2016.

As soon as the “Creeper” model is marketed, the enthusiasm for the project is immediate, so much so that Puma will support its recovery on this rich partnership, which will support the engagement of other stars, singers and models to also entrust them with the sponsorship of products, such as Kylie Jenner, Selena Gomez, TheWeeknd or more recently Dua Lipa. And between 2015 and the latest collection for winter 2017, the collaboration between Fenty and Puma has been a real success. Thus the offer was extended from sleepers to boots passing through sneaker models with wedge soles, but also for a sporty-chic prêt-à-porter proposal presented in fashion shows in New York and Paris.

Since then, Rihanna has experienced the bitter failure of the launch of Fenty with the LVMH group in 2019. But this empty passage does not seem to have reduced the potential of the Barbadian singer and entrepreneur, who is still developing her offering of SavageXFenty underwear and especially Fenty Beauty’s cosmetic proposition (which she successfully referenced during her 2023 Superbowl show).

Today the star, less visible on the music scene, is certainly even more powerful than a decade ago. She is followed by more than 145 million followers on Instagram and is an important figure for the affirmation and empowerment of women. For now, no launch date or runway plans during the fashion week have been revealed. But the fact remains that while the end of the agreement with Yeezy, the brand of the controversial Kanye West, is currently penalizing Adidas a lot, the return of the important partnership with Fenty and Rihanna could represent an important commercial asset for Puma in the coming months.