Smiley adds new collaborators for SS20, Ellesse and Eastpak join roster

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Aug 27, 2019

With the licensing industry continuing to ride high on a series of upscale fashion collaborations, The Smiley Company is on something of a roll and next season it will be leveraging its “counter culture iconicity, creative values and positive marketing message” with a number of new collabs.

Particularly important for SS20 will be debut collaborations with Eastpak, ElevenParis, Ellesse and De-Kryptic, alongside a number of existing collaborator brands offering new collections such as Lee Jeans, Chinatown Market, Kuwala, Bricktown, Learn to Forget, JCorp, and Daydreamer.

The companies showed most of these collections at the Magic, Agenda and Liberty tradeshows in Las Vegas this month with the firm’s VP of International Sales, Barth Montarello, saying SS20 is the first season in which so many of its fashion partners are launching new dedicated capsule collections.

Of the new collabs, the Ellesse collection will comprise a “track-ready line [that] taps into Ellesse’s sports heritage, but gets re-energised through the use of innovative fabrics and street-ready silhouettes.”

The Eleven Paris offer for women will include jersey tees that feature the original Smiley icon, while the Eastpak product sees a selection of Eastpak X Smiley streetwear-themed graphics launching across a collection of backpacks, mini bags and wheeled luggage. 

The De-Kry[tic collab, which the company first announced several months ago, comes as Smiley “continues to find ways to engage with Gen Z”. It includes a range of Augmented Reality apparel and accessories for SmileyWorld. The pieces include “3D animations, rich sound effects, and the ability to create sharable content across all social platforms” via a series of tees, crewnecks, hoodies, backpacks, bags and collectable boxes for boys and girls aged 8-18.