The Mestari Kesä: zomer reimagines the KARHU archive

Functional aesthetics: at the intersection of form and function

KARHU by zomer’s Mestari Kesä footwear campaign is an artistic collaboration of two pioneers of design, utility, creativity, and precision – KARHU, the longstanding Finnish running and utility brand, and zomer, the Dutch fashion frontiers. The awaited ready-to-wear collaboration, this year’s LVMH prize semi-finalist, presents three bold and imaginative reinterpretations of an archival KARHU shoe silhouette by zomer. The campaign constructs a tale of coexistence and balance through colour and design. The two main components of the shoe wrap the sides of the feet with a utilitarian aesthetic, bridged with a tongue that stretches from the toe box to the top of the shoe – it is a piece that intimately speaks to function as well as aesthetics. 

The hues of the Mestari Kesä speak to organic imagery through a dark brown, tech-utopian imaginings with silver, and finally to a never-ending cycle of duality and balance with the split-dyed pink and red iteration. The combination of tones and auras within the campaign emulate an insatiable desire to reconfigure the boundaries of ready-to-wear footwear combining luxury with utility. Sophisticated but playful, the Mestari Kesä campaign challenges the binary of the materiality of the human body and its incorporeal dimension of imagination and creativity. A dialectical treasure, KARHU by zomer proves that opposites not only attract but are meant for each other.