South Africa’s leading flame-grilled chicken brand Nando’s and global sneaker brand, Puma, have partnered to celebrate the country’s feisty and colourful heritage through the launch of the new colourful Rs-Xtra Hot shoe range showcased on Saturday at Sandton City.
The two brands said the partnership was done in honour of preserving and recreating the country’s colourful heritage embodied in the limited edition of the shoe range.
The shoe has been designed as a representation of the country’s colourful tradition and comes loaded with strong overlays on the toe, heel and eyestays with an added sauce of the chicken brand’s hotness.
Nando’s brand manager Ntobeko Sibiya said the limited edition of sneakers has been created with South African heritage at heart.
“This shoe has been developed with the true South African at heart and incorporates in its design, our peri perimeter which is part of our menu from mild to extra hot which encapsulates the fiery spirit of South Africa,” she said.
Puma’s marketing manager, Hayden Manuel, said what makes the shoe better is its comfort and representation of the country’s colourful taste, adding that the design took more than a year to realise.
“The collaboration took place over a year ago and took back and forth engagement with our headquarters in Germany to ensure that it comes down to this design.
“This is to celebrate two iconic ... brands in SA lifestyle culture which includes the country’s 11 official languages and South Africa being the centre of the world and having attracted international travellers from diverse backgrounds,” Manuel said.
Logan Woolfson, also known as TheNaked Cuber, celebrated for his record-breaking rubik cube exploits, said recreating the shoe in an artistic rubik cube was part of his creative process in celebrating the brand’s heritage.
“From a young age, I have always been involved in solving rubik cube’s but after some time, I decided to venture into expressing myself as an artist through rubik cubes.
“What inspires me is doing celebrity portraits through rubik cubes and having been part of telling and creating stories through the rubrik cube, I have been fortunate to have worked with the two brands in creating the shoe through rubik cube art, which has allowed me to represent the two brands through the art piece I created as part of the launch, Woolfson said.
Over the years, Woolfson has become one of the country’s leading high-end corporate custom art, live performances and events artists.