When we last spoke with Rihanna last December, she emphasized the role her family plays in informing her designs. “My vision is to bring family into everything,” she said at the time, ringing in the relaunch of her Fenty x PUMA Creeper.
Now, nearly a year after reviving the Creeper, Riri continues to hone in her partnership with PUMA, unveiling two new colorways of the coveted Fenty x PUMA Avanti. As RZA and Riot grow older, the soccer-loving songstress – also one-half of Hollywood’s flyest set of parents – slowly begins to enter her “soccer mom” era; it’s only a few more years before the boys hit the pitch and Rihanna’s “no skirt, no heels, tons of snacks”-ing to Saturday morning games.
For the release of the football-inspired Fenty x PUMA Avanti sneakers, Rihanna held a press conference – with questions solely served up by kid social media influencers – which felt fitting for the familial-influenced delivery. Reveling on the importance of family and spending time with her children, while Rihanna may have not gotten any official hands-on creative insight from RZA, Riot, or even Rocky, the trio remains key in her approach to sneaker design.
“I was very selfish with the colors. I wanted to make sneakers in colors that I wanted to wear and I wanted to see my kids wear,” she explains of selecting the new “Club Red” and “Warm White” shades.
“When I first met the Avanti, there was so much history. That’s what I was drawn to.”
A convergence of football and family, the sneakers both come crafted from premium leather, elevated with hits of gold detailing. “A red sneaker is something you can throw on no matter what. Super beat up with any outfit or any colorway,” she adds. “The only cream or white-ish sneaker I’d made was pony hair, so I wanted to do something more simple and also more affordable.”
The new colorways arrive just after Rihanna and the PUMA Avanti hit their one-year anniversary, with Rihanna announcing the return of the archival silhouette via Fenty x PUMA last September.
“When I first met the Avanti, there was so much history behind the shoe. That’s what I was drawn to,” she says again of the sneaker, specifically looking to soccer legends Eusebio, Pelé and Maradona. “PUMA has such a legacy in their archives and I wanted to highlight that. I wanted a shoe, selfishly, that was chunky in a silhouette but still sleek. Now I’m realizing the Avanti can be embraced in other ways. It can be evolved. There’s more interpretations to come.”
“The red ones would definitely be the Loud album and the white ones would be Music of the Sun,” she says, equating each sneaker’s energy to one of her albums. “They’re so pure, innocent and new. Just like how I was back in those days. How do I miss those days…”
As for what being a cool mom looks like for Rihanna?
“You’re looking at it.”
Cop a pair of Fenty x PUMA Avanti sneakers now at the official PUMA webstore.
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