Friday Video Premiere

*Every* Friday, we're highlighting a specific video (or two, or three) for your end of week enjoyment.

Note: this is also posted at Sportscentric.



Puma has a history of audacious projects that, for one reason or another, always end up falling short of expectations. Remember those ridiculous one-piece soccer kits they proposed? (Look right.)

Their most recent collaboration with fashion icon Alexander McQueen is another project that seems destined to fall woefully short of their goals.

Dig the "movie"--to call such a project an "ad" would be positively beneath them, ha--above.

Directed by the sooo-hot-right-now Saam Farhamand, this, erm, collection of moving pictures is supposed to impress us with Puma's artistic vision? Their sophisticated attempts at unifying athletic wear with cosmopolitan notions of style and dance?

I can't speak for others, but the lasting sentiment I get from the piece is not inspiration; it's more in the realm of the weird and off-putting. The music is cool, I'll give them that. I would love to partake in an epic, rainy duel with that music in the background. But that's about all this has going for it.

Two words keep coming to mind when I watch this: impersonal and farfetched. Like the "Until Then" ads (below), this piece is impossible to relate to and therefore unattached to my own experience. I am not impressed with the choppy images we get of what might well be impressive human movements.

This does not make we want to buy Puma gear.

We know that Puma is not Nike, or Adidas. They should be saluted for thinking outside the box in their attempts to gain entry into the sportswear circle of gods. And maybe the concept of McQueen's "ManCat" as a "creative reference" (whatever that means) will bring a cadre of fashionistas to Puma. But this piece is, literally, too narrow to grab and incorporate potential customers--it does more to turn them away.