A$AP Rocky, stylish fellow that he is, is the kind of guy who could flex unreleased merch in one of his typically excellent outfits without anyone noticing. In fact, that's exactly what he did! For months!
If we'd all been paying attention, we'd have noticed that A$AP Rocky had been wearing his collaborative PUMA F1 designs in the months leading up to the big reveal in late October. Or did we actually know that A$AP Rocky was partnering with PUMA and elect to keep the secret? I'll never tell...
But the fact of the matter is that Rocky tempted fate by stealthily mixing his unreleased PUMA collab into his day-to-day looks on a pretty consistent basis, because of course he did.
The secret was really just an extension of Rocky's stylistic genius: he didn't call attention to the PUMA gear because he never calls attention to anything he wears. In Rocky's hands, statement pieces are just, well, pieces.
It's a desperate trick to call attention to your head-turningest clothes; it's the epitome of elegance to organically integrate them into a cohesive look.
Look at how casually Rocky wore his prototype PUMA hats and shorts while in dad-on-the-go mode. You don't think about what he's wearing because none of it singularly demands attention, whether it's a Birkin bag or a pair of one-off shorts. True style creates a sum greater than the parts.
Rocky actually began the PUMA reveal back in February, when partner Rihanna performed at the Super Bowl Half Time show. You'd be forgiven for missing Rocky's PUMA hat considering, oh, I don't know, literally everything else happening in the meantime.
But Rocky wore the hat a month later, giving us another glimpse of it underneath his hoodie.
Then, he attended a PUMA F1 panel in Miami over the summer, again offering what we know now with hindsight to be a taste of the collab to come.
Otherwise, Rocky mostly wore excellent suits and Bottega Veneta in recent months, offering little indication that his PUMA F1 partnership was coming. It's remarkable that it never looked "off," either.
Like, if most other style-savvy celebs stepped out in PUMA, I might raise an eyebrow. Not because PUMA isn't cool necessarily, but because it's not the sportswear company you most commonly associate with the fashion-forward... 'til now.
Rihanna was far more forthcoming, flat-out wearing the new FENTY PUMA shoes with little fanfare. It's a better sneak peek, I suppose, if only because it makes no bones about what you're about to get.
It's further interesting to me, that not only did Rocky subtly step out in his collaborative PUMA gear long before he was officially announced as the creative director of PUMA's F1 offering, but none of that stuff showed up in the October 22 reveal.
There's a breathtaking amount of stuff debuted in the imagery, including PUMA-branded jeans, moto gloves, leather jackets, and fashionable helmets, but no cap and no shorts.
This leads me to believe that this stuff is either part of the collaborative capsule that Rocky and PUMA are dropping later or just some friends and family stuff... or some older PUMA stuff that Rocky just happened to wear because he liked it, which deflates my point entirely if so!
But, most importantly, it all underscores the reason that Rocky makes sense as PUMA's F1 director.
There's a lot of fashion potential in racing gear and PUMA competitors are on the rise. Detractors who whine about A$AP Rocky being appointed to direct PUMA's F1 business despite a seeming lack of race expertise are missing the point.
Rocky isn't being called in to legitimize racing or even comprehend racing: he's being brought in to make racing gear cool. Like, actually cool. And that Rocky made his PUMA gear look as cool as everything else he was wearing for the past few months is proof that he's the man for the job.
