IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
It is rare for a year to be so clearly defined by a color, but, inarguably, the color of 2025 was orange. Taylor Swift chose orange as the color palette for her twelfth album, “The Life of a Showgirl.” Then, Timothée Chalamet started hitting red carpets in head-to-toe orange as part of his marketing blitz for Marty Supreme (which has an orange ping pong ball subplot, by the way). And of course, all through the year, McLaren Racing drivers painted their circuits papaya.
For the design team at PUMA Motorsport, papaya was never far from top of mind throughout 2025. The 77-year-old sports apparel company had signed on to be McLaren Racing’s Team Kit and Apparel partner for the 2026 season. Now, they had an accelerated timeline to design a Teamwear, Lifestyle, and Fanwear collection that translated “traditional racing codes into a more progressive, lifestyle-driven expression without compromising the core brand DNA,” as Edda Meyer, PUMA’s Director of Design, Motorsport Apparel, explains.
“With season 2025 arriving and McLaren Racing showing strong performance on and off the track, it was clear for us that we wanted to partner with them,” explains Gregor Huebner, Head of Sports Marketing Motorsport & Racewear at PUMA. “McLaren Racing has a strong tradition and heritage in motorsport and a unique brand identity. In addition, they have a young and talented driver lineup which attracts fans all over the world.”
For their part, McLaren Racing wanted to expand even further into lifestyle and streetwear, creating apparel that felt true to their legacy and fashion-forward, carrying the brand from track to street. “We’re both high-performance brands that thrive at the intersection of innovation, culture, and community, so the partnership felt like a natural move,” says Louise McEwen, McLaren Racing’s Chief Marketing Officer. “PUMA combines deep motorsport credibility with a progressive design approach, while McLaren Racing brings its rich heritage and a globally engaged fanbase, creating a partnership rooted in authenticity and innovation.”
As the talks continued, the work commenced.
PUMA has been an innovator in sports apparel and design since 1948, but did not enter Formula 1 until 2001, when they became the official footwear and clothing supplier for Jordan Grand Prix. Ever since, they have worked with the biggest names and teams in the sport — Schumacher, Hamilton, Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari — creating the iconic SPEEDCAT along the way. But in their 25 years in Formula 1, they’d never partnered with McLaren Racing.
So, the PUMA Motorsport design team began by building a moodboard. They scoured McLaren Racing’s archive, finding iconic moments, colors, and graphic codes that would become anchors for their design language. “From the start, McLaren Racing’s core branding codes were untouchable — especially papaya, the speedmark graphic language, and the typography,” Meyer says. “These elements are essential to McLaren Racing’s identity and were never challenged.”
But Meyer explains that her team worked to push these essential elements further with design execution and visuality. “We explored more innovative materials, modern constructions, and contemporary fashion details, translating traditional racing codes into a more progressive, lifestyle-driven expression without compromising the core brand DNA.”
With the moodboard set, PUMA invited the McLaren Racing team to come in for a meeting where they’d show their “360 degree approach.” Huebner knew the partnership would have “huge potential” that both sides wanted “to max out” as the design team presented their vision. Huebner also straightforwardly laid out learnings from their past partnerships on the F1 grid. McLaren Racing arrived with the same openness, sharing “their wishes and objectives for the future,” Huebner says. “It was a really fair, honest, and friendly approach from both sides and I guess this was a defining ‘yes’ moment.”
Now, PUMA Motorsport designers began to play upon a fascinatingly complex canvas. They were working with 60 years of racing excellence across and would be communicating with principals and fans of a team with 10 Constructors’ Championships and eight iconic champions: Fittipaldi, Hunt, Lauda, Prost, Senna, Häkkinen, Hamilton, and Norris. Yet, they were also tasked with creating something decidedly fresh, different, and multi-series.
“With McLaren Racing, the fact that it was a new beginning gave us a lot of creative freedom,” says Stefano Favaro, Senior Director of Design at PUMA Motorsport. “While there is a strong and inspiring history, the design direction felt far less restricted. This allowed us to explore bolder graphics, more experimental silhouettes, and a more playful, fashion-forward attitude.”
But how do you capture that racing heritage while also creating gear and streetwear style that can be worn far from the paddock? That became the puzzle that the PUMA designers needed to solve.
Soon, they realized that the weight of that legacy meant that a little could go a long way. For the Lifestyle collection, they created silhouettes and proportions that fit the current everyday aesthetic. And there was no need to overwhelm designs with large McLaren Racing logos. This would not be fan merch; it would be stylish clothes for fans and fashionistas. “It was important that these pieces stand on their own,” Meyer explains, “even without the context of motorsport.”
And for the Fanwear and Teamwear collections, as well, the PUMA team soon realized that McLaren Racing’s brand was strong enough that it could speak clearly through whispers rather than shouts. “We stayed true to McLaren Racing’s branding and racing identity,” Meyer continues, “but challenged it through a new overall design aesthetic — refining proportions, visual balance, and execution rather than simply adding more logos.”
The unlock, more than any other, was that iconic papaya. “Beyond its heritage, it also feels very current — energetic, bold, and highly recognizable, which aligns perfectly with both fashion and tech,” Meyer explains. “We used papaya strategically to create instant recognition and inject youth and energy, balancing it with more neutral tones and refined executions so it feels confident rather than overpowering.”
There is no doubt when you see a piece from the collection that it is McLaren Racing. That is how powerful the team’s DNA proved to be.
“PUMA encouraged us to look at our visual identity through a new lens,” McEwan, McLaren Racing’s Chief Marketing Officer, explains. “While McLaren Racing’s instinct is precision and performance, PUMA pushed for a bolder, more expressive interpretation, one that could live on the street as confidently as it does on the grid. This meant amplifying signature elements in unexpected ways.”
To get to the final product, both sides took ownership of different parts of the process, working together in what McEwan explains as “a true collaboration.” The PUMA team led on technical design, while McLaren Racing became a guide on storytelling and visual identity. Because of the constrained timeline, concepts and designs were shared in regular review loops, and every note and revision came through quickly. “What really made it work was the teamwork,” PUMA Motorsport’s Senior Design Director Favaro says.
“The result was a collection that feels unmistakably McLaren Racing and refreshingly modern,” McEwan says. “It honors our heritage papaya, while embracing fashion-forward design language.”
PUMA’s decades in motorsport gave its team a wealth of knowledge in how to use an iconic color to link design to a team’s legacy and history.
“McLaren Racing’s papaya feels energetic and youthful,” Meyer explains. “The key is understanding the attitude behind the color and translating it in a way that feels authentic.”
For the designers, that vibrancy was essential to capture. The McLaren Racing drivers’ youthful energy matches the story that McLaren Racing and PUMA wanted to tell with the collection. “McLaren Racing feels British, younger, and more playful, and we translated that through a more expressive and contemporary fashion language,” Favaro says. “The presence of young drivers played an important role — it brought a sense of freshness, confidence, and optimism that allowed us to push bolder graphics, more modern silhouettes, and a lighter, more dynamic attitude overall.”
And those young drivers were more than just inspiration. They posed for shoots, filmed behind-the-scenes content, and even gave input on designs.
Because everyone — from Zak Brown, Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, and Pato O’Ward to Meyer, Huebner, and Favaro — understood that the first collection of the partnership had to set the tone. This would be the kit and apparel that marked the start of a new era of McLaren Racing x PUMA Motorsport. This needed to be wholly original, yet, at the same time, exist within six decades of racing tradition.
Favaro looked back to McLaren Racing’s greatest era — when Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, and Ayrton Senna won seven of eight Driver’s Championships in papaya — as inspiration. That 80s and early 90s aesthetic was “bold, simple, and uncompromising” and never swayed from the team’s foundational identity in pursuit of chasing trends.
To make a McLaren Racing x PUMA Motorsport kit and apparel release, his team would focus on the same principles: reduction, strong color statements, and clear silhouettes.
“Rather than over-designing, we aim to create pieces that feel authentic to racing culture and McLaren Racing’s DNA, so they can live beyond a single season,” Favaro explains. “For us, timelessness is less about nostalgia and more about designing with conviction and purpose.”
