PUMA has launched its very first Wilderness Collection in Durban, South Africa. The collection comprises apparel, footwear and accessories and will be part of PUMA’s 2012 Outdoor range. It connects to the company’s 20.1% stake in Wilderness Holdings Limited, a leading South African ecotourism and conservation company that is in the business of building sustainable conservation economies.
PUMA’s Wilderness Collection takes its inspiration from the company’s longstanding commitment to the African continent as well as PUMA’s sustainability mission to seek new ways to design, source, and produce its collections. Of the Spring/ Summer 2012 Wilderness Collection, 44% of the Apparel styles use Fair Trade cotton, 50% use Cotton Made in Africa (CMiA), and 94% are produced in Africa.
“The Wilderness Collection is a first step towards a more sustainable and socially responsible collection according to our mission to become the most desirable and sustainable Sportlifestyle company”, said Jochen Zeitz, Chairman and CEO of PUMA and Chief Sustainability Officer of PPR. “The goal is that eventually the entire collection will soon be 100% Fair Trade and 100% ‘Made in Africa’, including Accessories. This perfectly matches our sustainability roadmap to manufacture 50% percent of PUMA’s international collections according to the PUMA S-Index standard by 2015, only using more sustainable materials.”
With its worn, bushwhacked look & feel the Wilderness Collection specifically addresses the element of ‘heat’ while the rest of the collection addresses other elements. Through a regional distribution in South Africa starting with the Safari season in Spring/Summer 2012 the collection gives proof of a high credibility as an on-trend collection that blends modern design with outdoor functionality and is a perfect fit to PUMA’s shareholding of Wilderness Holdings Limited.
Within the scope of its sustainability strategy PUMA had acquired 20,1% of the shares of Wilderness Holdings Limited in February 2010. The shareholding is part of PUMA's social and environmental initiatives bundled under the PUMAVision program, a concept that intends to guide PUMA's work with its three core programs PUMA.Safe, PUMA.Creative and PUMA.Peace. Wilderness Holdings Limited, a company operating out of Botswana, is the leading ecotourism and conservation company in southern Africa, operating under the premise that it is building sustainable economies through experience-based tourism.