EXCLUSIVE: Sean John Releases First Women’s Collaboration With Missguided
Sean John is unveiling a debut women’s collaboration, a 117-piece collection with U.K. retailer Missguided, which will drop starting Sept. 29.
“I think the Sean John and Missguided partnership is brilliant and so classic,” shared 29-year-old American rapper Bia, born Bianca Landrau, who was tapped for the campaign. “It is a collection that I feel comfortable in and confident wearing. This shoot was so fun and natural.”
The visuals are a throwback to the Nineties and early Aughts. And Bia brings to mind the late Aaliyah in some shots, sporting a cropped tank paired with baggy, light-washed jeans that reveal an underwear waistband plastered with Sean John’s familiar logo. In another, Bia personifies hip-hop fashion in a matching purple, velour tracksuit. Consumers can also expect puffer jackets, oversize T-shirts, hoodies, bodycon minidresses, bodysuits and accessories like bucket hats, priced between $22 and $152 on Missguided.com.
“The first drop is being labeled the classics and really sees us take inspiration from some of the hero pieces from Sean John’s men’s collections from the early 2000s,” said Missguided’s founder and chief executive officer Nitin Passi. “In the subsequent drops, we will add more categories and look to push the fashion boundaries a bit further as well as react and maximize to what our customer has bought into the most.”
The fast-fashion company, which offers plus-size options, has launched several past collections with other brands, including Playboy. The partnership with Sean John reflects the heart of Missguided’s product strategy, Passi said. It’s to bring “customers new and exciting collaborations that they relate to and uniquely represent” the brand.
“Sean John is iconic,” Passi continued. “A brand with a history in hip-hop culture that hasn’t had a women’s wear collaboration before. That’s why it was a personal target for me, and I’ve been relentlessly focused on securing it for some time. Once we got a foot in the door and a meeting with their ceo and team, we came together quickly. We were aligned on the vision and potential of what this collaboration could offer.”
Of adapting to the pandemic this year, he added: “We’ve worked hard to make sure COVID-19 doesn’t get in the way of our progress. I’m not minimizing the various challenges, like all businesses, that we’ve had to address — and we’ve done that well — but there’s been a strong customer movement toward online. That means, more than ever, our role is to work even harder to bring our customer the kind of inspiration she wants. That’s what this collaboration does.”
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