Sports company Puma launched its first Metaverse website, dubbed Black Station, as part of its Futrograde show during New York Fashion Week. Black Station is a reminiscence of Puma’s own history. This is how Puma’s most innovative designs were labeled 20 years ago. “Given the boundaries we are pushing in product design and digital, we felt it fitting to bring back Black Station as a new portal for digital exploration of fashion, sports performance, our heritage classics and innovation,” says Adam Petrick, Pumas Chief Brand Officer.
The Puma Black Station, which can be accessed via the website blackstation.puma.com, is an interactive place where the future of the brand can be experienced with ever new ideas. The current experience begins with visitors entering a hyper-realistic digital lobby with three separate portals. The first two portals, accessible since September 7th, feature exclusive new Puma Nitro sneakers linked to Puma’s new NFT Nitro Pass. The Nitro Pass is Project Nitro’s NFT access pass and is based on the Ethereum blockchain. The third portal serves as the entrance to the NYFW Metaverse Digital Fashion Show. Visitors can immerse themselves in an interactive space and travel through a digital adaptation of the show where they can interact with the collection.
Those who have minted a Nitro Pass can receive two NFTs – one tied to physical products and one that unlocks a customized experience tied to the chosen shoe. After the show, NFT owners can redeem their digital shoes into physical sneakers by burning their NFT associated with the product. Puma thus combines digital design with physical products.
For the digital product design, the Puma designers were able to re-explore the creative boundaries. “Our design team took a lot of liberties when developing these shoes,” says Heiko Desens, Global Creative Director and Head of Innovation. “What’s just as impressive as the actual designs is that we were actually able to work with development to bring these stunning designs to life.”
The Black Station metaverse was developed by creative company FTR.
