This past weekend, FILA and Highsnobiety hosted the second panel experience inside the brand’s New York City pop-up to celebrate Explore, FILA’s limited collection of outdoor-inspired gear that’s just as at home on the streets.
The event took place in SoHo, where the FILA Explore Pop-Up was transformed into interactive zones meant to mimic the look and feel of four specific outdoor environments that inspired the Explore collection: Canyon, Woods, Mountain and Elements. The panel was hosted by Highsnobety’s Jeff Carvalho and discussed the rise of the urban explorer aesthetic in fashion and why outdoor-inspired gear is bigger than ever.
Carvalho was joined by graphic designer turned upcycled clothing maker Nicole McLaughlin, celebrity stylist Bloody Dior, and FILA’s VP of Heritage & Trend, Louis W. Colon III. They touched on how brands in recent years have adopted techwear into their collections, but stressed that having a heritage element brings everything full circle. “We didn’t want to just show up and drop product at retail, we wanted to do storytelling,” Colon explained. “To tell that [Reinhold] Messner story, go back into the ethos of [FILA] and say we’ve been in sport, we’ve been in fashion, we’ve been in the mountains for years.”
For McLaughlin, brand heritage and knowing that a company had some sort of history with what it’s trying to push is crucial. “It’s super important if a brand has heritage in that space because it just builds that authenticity,” McLaughlin says, “and you can look back and see that they have product from X year and do some research.”
Take a look at the video above to get a better idea of what went down, and check out the full FILA Explore collection at FILA.com.
- Photographer: Allen Jiang
