Modern fashion combined with a traditional Japanese flair. 

Puma is a classic sneaker brand that is well loved all over the world, and not just because they’re comfortable, stylish, or good shoes. In Japan, they’re also always doing awesome collaborations with beloved franchises like Pokémon and Super Mario. But their latest pair of shoes features designs of a very different nature; instead of cute characters, they’re embroidered with traditional hanafuda art.

Hanafuda are playing cards with brightly and boldly colored images of the seasons, native flowers, and animals. The artwork is distinctive and beautiful, and now you get to enjoy it on a stylish shoe as well as in playing card form!

The Puma Clyde Atmos Hanafuda are a pair of Puma’s classic basketball shoes, the Clyde (which are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year) being sold exclusively by Japanese fashion and shoe store Atmos. They’re simple black suede shoes embroidered with different hanafuda designs on each shoe that represent the seasons.

The right shoe depicts an orange deer among red and yellow fall leaves on the inner side (representing autumn) and a Chinese phoenix with purple paulownia flowers on the outside (representing winter)…

While the left shoe has a bird called a warbling white eye with plum blossoms on one side (representing spring) and a boar with bush clovers the other side (representing summer).

The shoes are also decorated with tabs that look like tanzaku–strips of paper on which poetry is written, which are also common motifs in hanafuda–with “Atmos” written in kanji and hiragana on one shoe and “Puma” written in kanji and hiragana on the other. Even the insoles are on theme. They’re decorated with an original design created by renowned calligraphy artist Shido Akama.

These stylish shoes are available now at Atmos stores across Japan and though the company’s online shop here for 17,600 yen (US$116). If you want to rep a little bit of Japanese culture with a really cool pair of sneakers, definitely pounce on these Puma Clydes!

Source, images: PR Times
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[ Read in Japanese ]