There’s a certain confidence that comes with knowing exactly what you want to say. As the World Cup approaches, the London-based designer Priya Ahluwalia has teamed up with PUMA for their second collaboration. The result is one of the most thoughtful sportswear collections you’ll see this season.
Drawing on her Indian-Nigerian heritage, Ahluwalia based the collection on her research of fan communities in places such as Morocco and Nigeria. This personal background gives the work a grounded quality that many collaborations between high-fashion designers and sportswear giants lack.
Her first collaboration with PUMA centered on a reimagining of the iconic Suede streetwear trainer. This time, the focus is squarely on sports, with the V-S1 at its core. It was pulled from the PUMA archive and reimagined through Ahluwalia’s point of view.
When asked about the design process, Ahluwalia was direct: “I thought about the feeling and the aesthetic of West Africa. Then, I looked at photography and art from the region, as well as photographs of fans with their signs and of the crowds in the stands. That really led me to think about the color palette, textures, tones, and graphic application.”
Her research extended well beyond her own memories. A visit to the PUMA archive yielded decades of artifacts—trainers, printed flyers, and other objects from the last fifty years—that helped inform the final edit. The result of this process is a collection that feels both referential and genuinely new.
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On the apparel side, the T7 tracksuit features stadium-inspired abstract prints and textured knits referencing the Nigerian flag. From gradient-heavy graphic polos to recycled-fiber construction, the collection sits between performance wear and everyday style.
The V-S1 sneaker comes in two versions: one with a pan-African color scheme of red, yellow, black, and green and another with a more subdued gray and black color scheme. Its streamlined, laceless silhouette resurrects the spirit of the early 2000s “V1” velocity soccer cleats, a technical nod to PUMA’s soccer DNA.
Accessories round out the collection. The Micro Grip Bag features the wave pattern seen across the T7 pieces and nods to PUMA’s Formstrip. A black baseball cap with a subtle Ahluwalia badge quietly finishes the lineup.
Ahluwalia is clear about what she believes a collaborator’s job should be: “If you’re a smaller brand, I think your job as a collaborator is to push a bigger brand out of its comfort zone and get it to do something that feels true to its essence.”
That push is visible throughout the collection. Much of the range is produced using recycled fibers. Ahluwalia worked closely with PUMA’s development team to experiment with new fabrication techniques for footwear and apparel. Here, sustainability isn’t an afterthought or a tagline; it’s built into the construction.
The campaign, shot in Morocco, evokes the same emotional response as the clothes. There are sun-bleached walls, sand-dusted streets, and the unmistakable visual language of African football fandom. Ahluwalia herself put it plainly: “People will see this on the street and know it’s Ahluwalia and PUMA.”
The PUMA x Ahluwalia collection will be available exclusively at the PUMA London Flagship Store and on Ahluwalia.world from April 21, 2026, with wider stockist distribution following on April 22.