Fila looks to its sporting past for new fashion collection

Fila is tapping into its mountaineering roots for its latest collection.

The sportswear brand is preparing to unveil ‘Explore,' a fashion-driven series inspired by the great outdoors, WWD reports.

The collection was partly inspired by the brand's outdoors heritage, including Reinhold Messner's legendary 1978 summit of Mount Everest, which he completed kitted out in Fila gear and without supplemental oxygen. Messner joined Fila as a global brand ambassador earlier this month.

Explore will comprise 140 pieces, divided into the categories of Canyon, Elements, Mountains and Woods. "There are tons of details that play on the trend and are also a nod to our past," Louis W. Colon 3rd, Fila North America's vice president of heritage and trend, told WWD. "It's for the forward-thinking customer."

The limited-edition collection will get a soft launch this weekend at ComplexCon in Chicago, before going on sale online and at a series of international pop-up stores on July 26.

The collection is the latest big move from Fila, which teamed up with Nickelodeon on a Rugrats collaboration earlier this year and launched a high-end fashion series with the Danish designer Astrid Andersen in January. The brand has been honing its fashion credentials recently, debuting a Fendi collaboration in Milan last September.