What to do with old jerseys? The Golden State Warriors have an idea
The NBA is officially in its off-season, but the Golden State Warriors are making moves. For the past nine years, the Bay Area team has partnered with Japanese online retail marketplace Rakuten as its official badge partner. Now, that partnership is changing. Rakuten will no longer serve as the Warriors badge partner, leaving behind a stockpile of old jerseys. Their solution is to mix these old jerseys with premium materials like genuine leather to create upcycled pieces made available to their fans as part of a limited collection called Warriors Golden Legacy Collection. The collection, accessible by fans who are Rakuten members from June 18 – June 25 via a sweepstakes, includes one leather jacket, two duffle bags, 10 denim jackets, 10 clear purses, and 35 bucket hats. [Photo: Sophie Kuller] “This has been a very long nine-year successful partnership and because there’s such rich history in the jersey, it made perfect sense to upcycle,” says Wendy Bergh, Rakuten’s chief marketing officer. To design this collection, the Warriors and Rakuten tapped premium merchandise and experiential product studio theheymann, led by its creative product developer Gustavo Servin, a Mexican born designer who grew up in the Bay Area as a passionate Warriors fan. [Photo: Sophie Kuller] “Gustavo is an incredible human, and I think he has a real modern but timeless sense of style,” says Amanda Chin, the Warriors SVP of Marketing. “What’s so special about Gustavo and what he is able to bring to fans is this really custom feel to the product. There’s a real uniqueness to how he crafts the pieces and is just very thoughtful about the details and storytelling.” Servin and his business partner’s storytelling involved giving a nod to the longstanding partnership between Rakuten and the Warriors. [Photo: Sophie Kuller] “ For us it was [about] how do we honor the legacy by making this really amazing product,” explains Servin. “But also how do we honor the legacy by stayin