The KARHU by zomer collaboration is a study in duality—where heritage meets experimentation, precision meets play, and two perspectives merge into one. The Mestari Kesä takes an archival KARHU silhouette and reinterprets it through zomer’s bold, expressive lens. Its split-color design embodies this balance, a visual representation of contrast and coexistence. Through material, form, and color, this partnership challenges conventions while staying rooted in craftsmanship, proving that the best design happens in the space between opposites.

For this upcoming collaboration we wanted to strip down to the essentials, the shoes that we walk on. Creating new shapes by using body movement, skin and the shoe. Shaping the body into something raw, fluid, and precise all at once.

Through the lens of Dan Tobin Smith and his technical approach to photography, the stills hold movement in a tight grip. Professional dancers, wearing nothing but sneakers, twist, and fold into fleeting shapes. The result is a frozen frame that contains with leftover energy, the echo of bodies in motion. In the final photograph, we can anticipate the before and after of the shot, which is also part of the final conceptual construction of the shoot, perceive movement before stillness. A series of mandalas created by bodies, rigid structures formed by organic components that lose their human shape in the collective, where the shoes are the only piece that reveals the beginning, or the end, of the bodies. This idea reflects the intersection between form and function, where the human body and its movement serve as the foundation and final expression of creativity.

Heritage in Motion

This collaboration is a dialogue between past and present—where KARHU’s legacy of Finnish craftsmanship meets zomer’s instinct for pushing boundaries. The Mestari Kesä reimagines an archival classic, proving that heritage is never static but always in motion.