We always noticed in our observation of cobranding and collaborations scene that there are some constant patterns that the partners-in-collabs follow; one of those is “the odd couple”.
The distances and contrasts between two brands and their respective histories is indeed one of the most frequent cases in our collaborations database: not everyone powerful and reaching the peaks of popularity of Louis Vuitton x Supreme in 2017, but an amazing number of unsuspected and sometimes opposite partners have already made common efforts to get the attention of media and consumer.
This is the case of Ralph Laure with Palace, a collaboration just announced that mixes WASP moods with the skateboarders subculture, in a Polo vs. Skate equation.
Could you think of an oddest couple?
It’s true that preppy aesthetics is one of the common ground in all the recent lifestyle brands collection, and Palace has already included some flavours of it into the latest ranges, but the power of such a collaboration stays into how it has been communicated.
It has been teased by a billboard in London and Tokyo, and a joint Instagram post featuring the two logos, and simple text “Palace Ralph Lauren is a timeless collection that represents a love letter from a young London skateboard company to their favourite brand in the universe.”
The news has spread immediately, covering both the fashion and and the skaters audiences. Fake-or-true as the first question, comments and articles bounced on the web, creating the buzz these collaborations live on.
We are looking forward to seeing the results of such a collaboration in an actual range of products, which is expected to be men polo, shirts and jackets, and will be useful for Polo Ralph Lauren to step into the booming streetwear scene, but we can say for now that collaborations platform has its strange ways.