The Fashionable Future of Wearable Tech Is On Samuel Ross' Wrist (EXCLUSIVE)
Despite it appearing like the next logical step in the evolution of clothes, the collision of high fashion and wearable tech has yet to happen in a way that feels truly bar-setting. WHOOP and Samuel Ross' collaboration is a sign that things may soon change.
Together with the former A-Cold-Wall designer's new SR_A venture, WHOOP is to launch a series of customized wristbands and joint apparel. PROJECT TERRAIN, the merger's name, promises to be a first-of-its-kind capsule of goods that blend technology, health, and the art of garment-making when it launches online later this year.
Known for its watch-like body monitors, WHOOP is leading the charge on human insights, helping users track and improve their training performance, recovery phases, and sleep patterns. In looking to aesthetically expand its range of offerings, the fit-tech company was bound to encounter someone like Samuel Ross.
After founding A-Cold-Wall and working with everyone from Nike to Apple to Hublot, Ross co-created SR_A with business partner Yi Ng, as an industrial design, fashion, and architecture bureau. Being active here, at the intersection of people, places, and products, would just about predestine the British multi-hyphenate's involvement in a gig of this nature.
“Design has always been core to how WHOOP delivers meaningful impact, and Samuel brings a level of craft and provocation that pushes that mission even further," said the brand of the creative partnership.
On what that materialized as in practice, Ross told Highsnobiety: "Project Terrain is being built for raw, nomadic movement, precision through performance, designed around the body’s intelligence, forged in the heat of training, and rooted in hardware and fabric. We’re creating something silent, unfiltered, compact, and enduring. It’s the result of two distinct founder perspectives on design and technology, being built over three years.”
So far, many of the not-so-many fashion-tech-crossovers haven't felt particularly innovative, too much or too little of either, with little more than logo guest-cameos to show for them. WHOOP and SR_A's team-up feels more in-the-weeds of both worlds, however, and noticeably dedicated to actually gelling one with the other.
Due for release later this year, 2026's PROJECT TERRAIN is a first meaningful glimpse at the still nascent tech-wear space's trajectory. But so, if this really is the future, consider us strapped in.
