Jerry Lorenzo Aims to “Pierce Culture” With adidas Basketball Collection Jerry Lorenzo Aims to “Pierce Culture” With adidas Basketball Collection
As hype builds for Jerry Lorenzo‘s debut
adidas
Basketball collection, the Fear of God founder took a moment out of his busy day to speak with Pyer Moss‘ Kerby Jean-Raymond for Interview. The two touch on topics ranging from Lorenzo’s forthcoming work with The Three Stripes to their approaches in transitioning from independent design teams to corporate creative endeavors.
The conversation hinges around Lorenzo’s experience with adidas, which Jean-Raymond considers in light of his own appointment as Reebok’s Vice President of Creative Direction. Even though neither one will unveil their finalized creations with the sportswear companies until 2022 — Lorenzo and his team only started working with adidas late last year, after all — there’s plenty to be done.
“The thing about Adidas is that they’re in a unique position to bend in uncomfortable ways in order to make this work,” Lorenzo says. “They’re already under the understanding that this is going to have to work differently in order for this to pierce culture in a way that we’re all hoping it will.”
Jean-Raymond concurs: ” We’re there to force their hand, to make them think a bit smaller, and to rally around the creative.”
Lorenzo admits that adidas is demanding “A lot more [time] than I anticipated,” to which Jean-Raymond affirms that “cracking this lane wide open” is “fatiguing.”
“All you can do is plant the seeds,” Lorenzo contends. “Water them to the best of your ability. That’s the reality of what we do in fashion. If we see somebody on the street wearing our product wrong, we can’t go over there and fix the jacket.”
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Jean-Raymond jokingly disagrees, however: “I walk up to people wearing my sh*t in the street and I’m like, ‘Hey man, tuck your pants inside your socks.’”
Later, the pair discuss the response to Fear of God’s latest collection (“Overwhelming,” says Lorenzo) and the far-reaching impact of ESSENTIALS.
“At first the line was called F.O.G. but we changed the name to ESSENTIALS two-and-a-half years ago because I didn’t want it to sound like a takedown of our main line,” Lorenzo recalls.
Finally, the duo briefly reference the New York Times‘ recent exploration of fashion’s underwhelming diversity deliveries following a year of strife and heartache. “We saw what happened last year with George Floyd, and the series of black boxes on social media that followed,” Jean-Raymond begins. “What do you think about how corporate America has responded to issues of race?”
“That’s a fully loaded question!” Lorenzo laughs, before delving deeper into the question.
As Lorenzo develops his vision of basketball with adidas, his ESSENTIALS sub-label turned its attention to a wholly different sport: tennis.
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