Stan Birch and Saucony Want You to Stand Out

September 01, 2026

Stan Birch has always known this time would come. Long before expanding his practice into fashion design and bespoke garments, the Paris-based designer was hand-making footwear, eventually producing some 2,000 pairs. While his practice expanded beyond shoes, the idea of creating an official release of his own never really disappeared. Now, that idea arrives in the form of his first footwear collaboration with Saucony, putting his own spin on the ProGrid Guide 7.

The result brings together subdued yet striking colors, soft textures, metallic gold accents and details that emphasize the shoe’s individuality. But for Birch, the project is about more than making a sneaker look different. “Stand Out” is a philosophy that runs through his work, rooted in individuality and the idea that what you wear should feel like a representation of yourself.

During Paris Fashion Week Men’s in June, office paid a visit to the Saucony x Stan Birch showroom to get an early look at the collaboration. We then recently caught up with Stan again to further discuss his return to footwear, the making of the Guide 7 and why, sometimes, standing out is the whole point.

By Dylan Andrews
Photos by Louis Camelin

This is your first ever footwear collaboration. What made working on a shoe feel like the right next step for you?

And hopefully the first of many! I spent years making handmade footwear and creating some crazy colorways for private clients and brands. I stopped counting at around 2,000 handmade pairs, and at some point I felt ready to take everything to the next level. That led me into learning fashion design, where I began creating bespoke garments and full clothing collections. But somehow, I always knew it would bring me back to footwear but this time designing an official release of my own. Subconsciously, I think that had always been the ultimate goal.

What was your relationship with Saucony like before this project came about?

Always loved Saucony, mainly through its lifestyle products. I’m not a runner, so I can’t pretend to be an expert on running technologies, but I have always respected the brand’s performance heritage and the way it has communicated that history into lifestyle footwear. I met Jason (Faustino) during Paris Fashion Week, around two years before the collaboration was even discussed. An agency had invited me to the Saucony showroom, and Jason and I immediately connected. We stayed in touch, and one day, the conversation naturally evolved into the idea of working together.

Why was this the right silhouette for you to reinterpret?

I think it’s all a question of panel layout. When they showed me the different options I immediately went to this one. Because I hand-worked so many shoes before, I kinda naturally knew I would be able to work my color symmetry on it.

When you first started designing the collaboration, what was the first thing you knew you wanted to change or bring to the original shoe?

Definitely my signature colors and really soft fabrics. I really wanted people to feel like, ‘Oh, these are unique.’ That’s why I also wanted to have a colorful midsole, something that you don’t necessarily see very often and that really makes the shoe stand out. I have a different approach to colors, I love subdued colors – bright but never too much – and I think that symmetry in the way you put them together really sets it all.

The collaboration is built around the idea of “Stand Out.” What does standing out mean to you?

It means everything. I always try to stand out in a way. And I feel today everyone pretty much feels like they have to do the same as everyone else to belong to a group and feel accepted. So I really wanted to insist on the importance of being unique, and the importance of standing out. That's what I've been doing my whole career, making bespoke products for people, so they can feel unique and wear something that is a representation of themselves. And this ‘Stand Out’ idea is translated in several ways on this shoe. The shiny gold details stand out from the rest of the shoe. The hairy suede by definition, is hundreds of little suede threads that stand out from one another. And several embroideries that are above the fabrics, and therefore, that stands out.

What was the biggest challenge of designing footwear for the first time?

Honestly the design part was particularly easy because I knew exactly what direction I was going for. And the whole Saucony team has been amazing since the very beginning and was always there to help if needed. The whole campaign shooting, the organisation, can be challenging at times, especially as it was my first big shooting-production. But honestly everything went pretty smooth for a first time and I really felt at my place.

Was there anything about the design process that surprised you or stood out to you?

Not really because I was so ready to jump into this new life, this new level. I was really ready for anything. I knew it was going to be a long process, potentially months, years. And as I said everything went really well, it was so good to work hand-in-hand with the whole team.

I was so ready to jump into this new life, this new level. I was really ready for anything.

How did you balance your own visual identity with the existing DNA and history of Saucony?

I feel like when a brand as good as Saucony wants to work with you, it becomes your role to make the best product possible. Keeping the original purpose of the chosen silhouette while bringing it into my own world. The Guide 7’s early 2010s vibe stayed intact, while my visual language was introduced with colors and texture contrasts. The running heritage, now lifestyle piece. Still functional, and re-designed to stand out.

What do you hope someone feels when they put these on for the first time?

So first of all, the view from above is crazy! The mesh and gold accent on the toe-box really makes the shoe pop in the eyes of the wearer. As a sneaker lover myself, I wanted the person who wears it to be amazed just by looking down on their feet. So I just want them to feel like, ‘Wow, they really went crazy on those, now I really stand out.’

Fashion

Pharrell x Adidas Release the VIRGINIA Watermoc

September 01, 2026

VIRGINIA, Pharrell Williams’ creative platform, and adidas Originals launched the VIRGINIA Watermoc. First revealed earlier this summer during a beach takeover in Marseille, France, the Watermoc debuts in three colorways—blue, yellow, and black—all featuring the newest silhouette from the ongoing adidas Originals x Pharrell Williams VIRGINIA creative partnership.

Inspired by the early-2000s adidas Adventure Water Moc silhouette, the latest collaboration features neoprene U-throat construction, breathable mesh ventilation, reflective webbing, bungee speed lacing, and a durable rubber lug outsole engineered for enhanced traction, making it ideal for any destination the wind may take you.

The ongoing collaborations between VIRGINIA and adidas Originals represent more than clothing; they're a capsule of culture, music, creativity, and innovation.

Words by Bernice Nguyen

Fashion

Meet the Artist Behind Robert Wun’s 3D Creations: Yuma Burgess

August 31, 2026

Behind many of Robert Wun’s most striking runway objects is London-based visual artist Yuma Burgess. Working across digital sculpting, 3D printing, casting, and hand finishing, Yuma transforms Robert Wun’s sketches into physical objects. From sculptural birds and masks to skeletal prosthetics and anatomical body pieces, his work extends the silhouette beyond the garment, becoming an integral part of Wun’s cinematic storytelling. Yuma uses contemporary fabrication techniques to create objects that feel unearthed rather than manufactured. Drawing from mythology, ancient civilizations, cave paintings, and prehistoric symbolism, his sculptures collapse the distance between the primordial and the futuristic, creating a visual language that has become central to Robert Wun’s world. Beyond the runway, Yuma has collaborated with Caroline Polachek, FKA twigs, Paolina Russo, Travis Scott, and Young Thug, bringing the same sculptural vocabulary across fashion, music, and film.

In Conversation With Yuma Burgess on Mythology, Making, and Robert Wun
Text by Madison Minton and Leanda Heler
Photo Courtesy of Robert Wun

Your work feels like it's excavated rather than manufactured. What first drew you to symbols and ancient objects as a visual language?

It's the question of invention or discovery and I'm very much team discovery. Everything is already there, and always has been. Symbols just point toward that nowhere-to-be-found but everywhere-present everything-ness. It's the romantic idealist stance.

You often combine digital modeling with primitive casting techniques. What interests you about bringing those two worlds together?

Novelty is an attribute of things in time; newness is an inversion of the infinite. So paradoxically, if you're trying to point in the direction of God, the best signpost material is cutting-edge technology. If that makes any sense at all. Having said that, mostly it's not really a philosophical choice on my part, it's convenience. I use CNC machining and 3D printing because they're simply the fastest way to get an idea out of my head and into a shape. If I could 3D print directly in metal, I would, I just sand cast because it's way cheaper.

You've spoken about mythology as a way of understanding the present. Are there particular civilizations, belief systems or symbols that continue to influence your work today?

I think we live in a Gnostic age, one of self-empowerment through (g)knowledge. You might think I'm about to criticize individualism, but I'm not. I think self-knowing is an essential step, a chapter, in an individual's development. But the ultimate Gnostic truth (self-knowledge) is, to me, knowledge of Christ. I actually think the Promethean story is quite Gnostic in structure; acting as gods ourselves, gaining power and control over nature. Transgression as the origin of enlightenment rather than sin. The Promethean instinct is hard to suppress - but only having chased that flame and burnt ourselves a little do we learn that it was a cautionary tale. I think people read the golem, or Frankenstein's monster, and their first reaction is "cool, let's make our own monster." The whole world is Dr. Frankenstein right now, preoccupied with the attainment of ever more worldly knowledge. But the kind of knowledge we need isn't of this world.

Is there a particular symbol, object or topic you've been researching recently?

I'm a huge fan of E.T.A. Hoffmann and the German Romantics.

Your collaboration with Robert Wun has become one of the defining aspects of your practice. How did that relationship begin, and what was it about Robert's work that made you want to build alongside it?

He's very good at seeing my strengths and using them properly; putting me to best use, and not putting me where I shouldn't be.

Can you walk us through your process? Does Robert usually come to you with a sketch, a reference, or simply an idea, and how do you translate that into a finished object?

It varies a lot, but best case scenario, Robert gives me a loose sketch and talks me through the whole concept. We sit down and have a conversation about it, and then he'll say, "I'll need that by next week."

Of everything you've created for Robert, is there one piece that you're especially proud of?

I genuinely love the birds from the recent collection, I think they're amazing. I loved studying references of animals and birds in flight, and I have a new appreciation for bird wings and feathers now.

Working so closely to Robert Wun's collections gives you a perspective few people ever see. What have you learned about the relationship between craftsmanship and storytelling in couture?

I think the story is what gives an object its meaning, its logic - and Robert does it really well, it’s so clear and unmistakeable. I think most of an object's value sits in that logic, above the form and the aesthetics. You could make something quite disproportionate, but if the logic behind it justifies the ugliness, it becomes beautiful.

I heard you're renovating a church in Scotland. What drew you to that building, and has constructing a space that carries so much history changed the way you think about making objects?

Honestly? It was cheap and spacious. But having moved in and spent time in this old stone church, it has influenced me more than I might realize. Actually, the church is a great example of craftsmanship and storytelling... Cathedrals are often built like a body, given life through the meaning of what it was built for.

When people look back at your work decades from now, what do you hope they understand about the world you were trying to build?

I try not to think too much about what people think - even an imagined future people. I just want to make something true, good and beautiful. I'd like myself to remain anonymous, but my works to be known, like the Gothic architects and masons of 13th-century Britain.

Fashion

The Netherlands’ Community of Women Surfers Makes Safety-Yellow Fashionable

New Amsterdam Surf Association is unveiling its women's collection, inspired by the community of surfers that ride in Wijk aan Zee, a coastal village along the North Sea of the Netherlands. Contrary to California's glassy blue waters and beaches dotted with palms, the terrain here is rough and lined with industrial buildings. The waves are brown, murky, and cold, but still the die-hard community of female surfers comes from the city to catch the barrels of waves and hopefully not wipe out in the break.

Among this unflinching climate, surfers don bright-yellow long sleeves under T-shirts for safety, or cover their swimsuits with waxed denim jackets and charcoal gray sweats. In a sports culture that values the technicality of their garments, these pieces introduce the effortlessly cool fashion synonymous with Amsterdam into the mix. A group of individuals brought together by the surf, their camaraderie in the face of thrashing waters reveals a collective strength.