#150620 FILA China Casual Athleisure Lifestyle Jogger Designs
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December 2014 -November 2015
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Anta Sports/FILA
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Full-time senior designer
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To design a series of 4 silhouettes under the performance category, tennis, running, cross-training and a lifestyle for locate China market. A lifestyle sportswear silhouette is the second project.
FILA athleisure collection was my design proposal towards a range of casual lifestyle footwear. This category footwear is largely combining retro classic sports styles with modern materials and executions. This first design approach was based on 70s classic die-cut eva running shoe tooling.
Before I dive into design details of this category lifestyle footwear. I need to explain the background of FILA brand at that time. When I was hired to design FILA footwear in 2015, FILA was owned by a Korean sports company, and was licensed in China by Anta company. (Anta is a 100% Chinese local brand out of southern China.
Long story short, FILA brand strategy was entering China market not as a sports brand instead FILA was positioning the brand as a fashion/lifestyle brand in order to differentiate FILA from existing sports brands, such as Nike, Adidas, Puma, Skechers, etc.
In the market, in another words, FILA can’t/don’t want to complete with well established sports brands in the market.
One significant action was that before FILA opened their flagship stores, FILA was in all major shopping malls on the fashion floor instead of the sports floor. This collection was my answer to FILA fashion/lifestyle brand direction.
I still wanted to inject more of the sports aesthetics than fashion elements into this collection. For example, I insisted on pushing the use of FILA chevron shape on upper, which was in conflicting with FILA inline team of using boxed F logo.
I strongly believe that FILA chevron shape has a much deeper meaning to the band. The straight up graphic style brand logo usage is too fashion driven. FILA athleisure collection was my design proposal towards a range of casual lifestyle footwear.
This category footwear is largely combining retro classic sports styles with modern materials and executions. This first design approach was based on 70s classic die-cut eva running shoe tooling.
I focused on a simple silhouette with the emphasis on FILA chevron shape which is heat pressed TPU construction. Through prototyping samples, I realized that the diamond shaped eva underlay Could be bigger.
The eyelets need to be larger in order to have a better visual visibility. One of the areas where I wanted to explore design opportunities is outsole. I was experiencing different ways I can incorporate FILA branding and color blocks in a graphic design sort of way.
This is a knitted sock pull up version. With the traditional die-cut eva bottom it really gives a new aesthetics. Personally, this slip-on silhouette was my favorite. This is a knitted sock pull up version. With the traditional die-cut eva bottom it really gives a new aesthetics.
Personally, this slip-on silhouette was my favorite. This is the original concept of a lace up version. Eventually for samples, the two tone eva midsole was replaced with one tone. Also the tongue logo was replaced with boxed F logo.
I focused on a simple silhouette with the emphasis on FILA chevron shape which is heat pressed TPU construction. Through prototyping samples, I realized that the diamond shaped eva underlay Could be bigger.
The eyelets need to be larger in order to have a better visual visibility. The upper is constructed in a sandwich layered format. A die-cut eva diamond pattern is placed between lining and shell layer to provide both breath-ability and structure. The shell is a layer of see through air mesh so that diamond pattern is visible.
Above are the mockup bottom toolings. I tried different tread pattern using the F logo.
