Let's Talk about Collaborations, Shall We?
Featuring Brand Chat vol.4 with Bala Bangles founder Natalie Holloway
Every time I think I’m about to have a quiet week, the sports fashion gods provide. A slew of new collaborations were announced over the past few days – some great, some meh – and I figured it was time to do a little exploration on what makes for a good collaboration in this space. When you’re partnering in the sports world, authenticity becomes a major KPI. Brands need to ask themselves: What’s the value we’re bringing to the community?
We touched on this for SKIMS x The North Face – a collaboration that claimed to “promote exploration for everyone and invite more women into snow sports.” It certainly touched a chord with the SKIMS community. The proof is in the latest Lyst Index, where buzz for the collaboration propelled SKIMS to No. 11 on the brand ranking and landed the puffer on the ranking of most popular products. Whether it served The North Face’s core outdoor audience still feels harder to pin down. (Though their recent earnings reports suggests things are on the up and up, thanks
for the on-point analysis.)With that in mind, let’s dive into a few noteworthy sports, fashion, and beauty collaborations that dropped this week.
Bala Bangles x Pucci
I love this pairing. It’s surprising and yet feels entirely aligned with Bala’s POV around creating workout equipment that doubles as a stylish accessory. From their About page: “At Bala, we believe form and function should coexist. That fashion and fitness go hand-in-hand. That design alone can inspire movement.” For Pucci, the color-forward 78-year-old Italian brand, it’s an opportunity to ignite interest and relevance (of note: it was Pucci who approached Bala). Bala’s design ethos means the iconic fashion house is in good hands and the campaign assets feel fresh yet nostalgic, evoking memories of jazzercise in the best way.
Bala founder
recently launched her own Substack and has been sharing detailed and specific advice on how she’s built the brand, including how they approach collaborations. You’ll hear more from Natalie in my latest Brand Chat below, but I love this quote on what makes a collaboration great:“The most impactful partnerships often emerge from unexpected pairings. These collaborations pique curiosity, challenge norms, and create excitement. They demonstrate that innovation isn’t just about new products or services—it’s about reimagining what’s possible.”
In her newsletter, Natalie hints at more collaborations to come in 2025 and that got me thinking.
Free Collaboration Thought Starters for Bala
Hill House Home: I’d love to see Bala team up with Nell Diamond to make some floral bangles. It would pair well with Hill House’s inevitable foray into athleisure (something has to be in the works, right?) Alternatively, Liberty London hits a similar, flower-forward vibe. Their neo-Tudor fever dream of a department store is one of my favorite places in London (sorry I’m basic – but those stairs! That WWI memorial to the employees!) and feels ripe for a community activation.
Morgan Riddle: Bala should collaborate on product with an engaging internet personality like Morgan Riddle. Taylor Fritz’s prolific content-creating and Vogue-contributing girlfriend has not only inspired a host of young women to take up tennis she’s also devoted to pilates and hosts classes for her community. Easy money.
Halfdays x ILIA Beauty
When I got the email teasing this launch, I was psyched. I loved the clever copy and on-mountain imagery. As a fan and customer of both brands I had high hopes for this skiwear meets skincare collaboration.
The release features Halfdays’s Lawrence Jacket and Allesandro Pants in ILIA’s “iconic lip shade.” Purchases of the full set (both pants and jacket) come with a free Ilia Barrier Build Protectant Cream. Halfdays and ILIA are also promoting a “Snow Day Getaway,” where you could win a stay at Four Seasons Whistler, the ILIA x Halfdays ski suit, and an edit of winter-inspired skincare and makeup.
Ultimately, Halfdays x ILIA feels – forgive me – half-baked. I am surprised ILIA didn’t go deeper on the product tie-ins. They didn’t have to make anything net new, a clever edit would have sufficed. The brand is known for their edits, where they bundle products together to make it easy to get a full look. How easy would it have been to nod to ski culture with a “First Tracks” edit, with all the essentials you need to put on early in the morning for a day of skiing (and après). If they wanted to double down, they could have made a travel-sized pouch to go along with the ski-friendly selections, maybe with “First Tracks “ or “First Chair” written on it. Merit generates a ton of buzz off of their special-edition makeup bags. As it is, I’m left wondering if ILIA just gave Halfdays their Pantone color and called it a day.
Of course, there are larger questions afoot about the continued investment of beauty into sports. Ochuko Akpovbovbo covered the collaboration in her newsletter As Seen On this week and I appreciated her perspective, which aligns with some of the previous comments I’ve shared about the ways that beauty brands are upholding a very specific version of sporty femininity:
“As someone who works in sports, my thoughts on the beauty industry moving into this space are complicated. On one hand, I’m like, oh, this is fun! On the other hand, I’m aware of the fact that sports, for many women and girls, is one of the few spaces where “form over function” is not the reality. Growing up and playing sports was one of the few times I assessed my teenage body not by what it looked like, but for what it could do. That’s why what I’m seeing makes me uneasy—because, let's be honest, these brands have zero interest in expanding our understanding of beauty. I’m keeping a close eye on how it all plays out, but women’s sports as a category is such nascent territory but with significant potential and impact. It’ll be a shame to divert attention from ability to appearance. Irresponsible, in fact.”
At a time when a host of brands are investing in ski culture, Halfdays x ILIA needed to do a little more to “reimagine what’s possible” as Bala’s Natalie Holloway so aptly put it.
Free Collaboration Thought Starters for Halfdays
Team Up with an Iconic Mountain or Hotel: Hospitality collaborations are a great way to lean into world-building as they lend DTC brands a sense of place and history. Sporty & Rich has done this brilliantly with their Carlyle Hotel collection and recently released one with Le Bristol. Imagine Halfdays x Sun Valley or Steamboat? Or Halfdays x The Peruvian Lodge?
Dorsey: Let’s face it, skiing is blingy. Team up with Dorsey on helmet-friendly earrings and then indulge wildly in “Frost Yourself” content (you’re welcome
).
(To be honest, this is possibly not my most coherent idea, but couldn’t resist the How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days reference. I also thought that partnering with Tiffany for a signature blue ski suit would be fun but too far-fetched.)
Left On Friday: Soaking in a hot tub or lounging in sauna is a beloved ski ritual. Team up with LoF on a cute après bikini. The story writes itself.
- of Slopeside introduced me to this up-and-coming Scandi brand that has adapted Japanese fishing boots into the coolest après footwear around. A collaboration with Fubuki would demonstrate that Halfdays has its finger on the pulse of ski culture. Ugg or Moonboots are the obvious other choices here. Notably, Moonboots just teamed up with fashion favorite restaurant Sant Ambroeus to celebrate their Aspen opening, creating a limited-edition suede boot that they’re gifting to tastemakers. Again! Hospitality collabs: so hot right now. (Too lazy to embed Zoolander Gif.)
Asics x Juliana Salazar
Asics is sneaky good at marketing. This collaboration on a colorway of their Gel-Kayano 14 is admittedly more lifestyle than performance, but it spoke to me on a few levels. Ever since Alex Mill teamed up with Substack-darling
I’ve been curious when we’d see other such collaborations. By teaming up with Salazar, a “cultural connoisseur, brand manager, and creative director with 5K Substack subscribers and 59K Instagram followers, Asics is tapping right into the smart-girl zeitgeist. They’d previously worked with Salazar to style the Gel-Kayanos in a 2023 Hypebae advertorial, so this has been in the making for a bit. It’s nice to see a long-term relationship pay off and the shoe is deeply appealing with its muted metallics and on-trend early aughts silhouette. My only note is it would be fun to get some insights on the design from Salazar on her Substack, which has been a little quiet since November.Free Collaboration Thought Starters for Asics:
The Sweat Lookbook: I’m available ;)
Brand Chat Vol. 4
In conversation with Natalie Holloway, founder of Bala Bangles
What was your introduction to sports? Do you remember what you wore?
Probably when I started playing softball in the 3rd grade. A purple uniform with knee-high softball socks.
What's your go-to workout routine? How has that changed during pregnancy?
A sweaty yoga class if I can make it to a studio. Y7 is my favorite or an at home workout via Balacize or Form with Bala weights. I haven’t been able to do my favorite sweaty classes my whole pregnancy so I can’t wait to start doing them again after the baby is born. Overall, I have been WAY easier on myself during pregnancy and just tried to walk lately as my movement.
What kinds of clothing do you like to wear to work out?
Comfy leggings and sports bra. My favorite brands are Year of Ours and Splits59.
What's your approach to dressing for performance? How do you want to feel when you're doing yoga or teaching a class?
Comfort is key but I also want to be sucked in (not in baggy clothes). I want to not feel the clothing too much, which is why I prefer brands like Splits, Year of Ours, and Beyond Yoga. They feel good and buttery on your body so you are not focused on the clothes, but instead, the workout.
Bala bands have become a workout fashion accessory in their own right (the name is so perfect in that regard!). Can you talk to me about the inspiration for the brand and how you created a desirable wearable weight?
My husband and I were in advertising working at an agency called 72andSunny, and we were extremely burnt out so we said, let’s quit our jobs and travel for a year. The plan was to return to the States after a year and just get jobs again (in our 27-year-old minds, this was no big deal).
We were doing a really easy meditative class in Indonesia and we wanted to sweat more so we said… how could we make this class a little harder and level up with resistance. It dawned on us that old-school wrist and ankle weights were hideous, uncomfortable, and outdated. We immediately said let’s redesign wrist and ankle weights and make them a thing again. We sketched Bala Bangles out right then and there. And part of the reason we came up with Bala Bangles was that my favorite yoga studio at the time was Core Power Yoga and they used dumbbells in their killer Sculpt classes. I always felt that they interrupted your yoga flow which was the insight for wearing the weights on your arms instead (enter: Bala Bangles).
Bala sells to a lot of studios, which have become little runways/incubators for activewear fashion in their own right. I'm curious about trends you're seeing in the space or what you've noticed when you head to the studio in terms of what women are wearing.
I’m seeing studios that are incredibly aesthetically driven and that is part of their allure. In this same sense, I am seeing women truly dress up to work out because that might be their outfit for the day so they might as well make it cute. We are living in a time where we might not need to dress up to go to an office since a lot of us WFH, so dressing cute to go to a studio and then a coffee shop might just be our opportunity to get ready for the day.
When it comes to clothing specifically, what do you think is missing from the activewear market?
I feel like we need a brand that is truly activewear but also a chic outfit to wear outside. Some brands make certain pieces like this but I haven’t seen its full potential yet. I’m thinking a dress that truly could be worn to dinner and worked out in or a cute blazer in that same regard.
(Lee’s note: maybe what Natalie is looking for is STAUD Sport? of Brand Person had some good thoughts on the highs and lows of their “Life is Sport’ launch.)
Quick Thoughts
Things That Caught My Eye or Ire…
The Art World is Obsessed with Running. “The high is real, it’s a euphoria similar to the adrenaline that comes with closing a deal in the first hour of a fair. Both require a kind of psychological commitment with a side of variable masochism.” Thanks to
and for flagging this story.Maybelline will be the "title sponsor for a new women’s professional lacrosse league" called the Maybelline Women’s Lacrosse League. Besides financial support, the company will provide players with products for on and off the field. See thoughts above! Also, I am patiently waiting for the Grand Slam Track beauty tie-in…
Wilson debuted a new women’s tennis shoe, the Intrigue, developed in collaboration with Marta Kostyuk. “Wilson and I wanted to create something that empowers women to move quicker and be more agile, while still looking sharp; the Intrigue does exactly that. This shoe has made my game faster and more relentless, and I hope it helps female athletes everywhere elevate their Tennis game,” says Kostyuk. Still, Coco Gauff is the only active women’s tennis player with her name on a shoe.
Athleta named Unrivaled stars Lexie Hull and Kate Martin to their Power of She Collective. I thought this wording from the press release was interesting: “Hull and Martin will partner with Athleta to influence product innovations, access personal and professional mentorship opportunities, and participate in the brand’s Power of She impact programs.” Influence just feels so… flimsy… It probably explains why so many of their athlete collaboration collections have been fairly meh.
Can’t help but chuckle over the case of the Bandit bandit. The brand may be a darling of NYC fashion pubs, but they’ve inadvertently run afoul of the NYC running community. (TBH, it’s easy to do.)
I joined a host of other runners on ’s Plant Based newsletter to share our favorite gear.
Believe in the Run had a good round-up of all the running industry goings on at Paris Men’s Fashion Week.
A moment for this gorgeous imagery of the Cholita Climbers, Indigenous mountaineers from Bolivia.
Loved this feature from Outside Magazine on Kwasi Kessie, stylist to Noah Lyles, Tamirat Tola, and Boston Marathon winner Evans Chebet. “Running is fly and fashionable.” Kessie told Sarah Gearhart. An 11-time NYC marathoner, he knows his stuff when he says running is “the coolest that it’s ever been.” I’ve been watching Outside closely ever since they made former Esquire Lifestyle and Culture Director Kevin Sintumuang their Editorial Director, a reflection of the shift in running and other outdoor activities from “niche” to “stylish.”
Here for a Frost Yourself moment
Brilliant recommendations & the hotel collections are my dream collabs 🙏 Need every brand to do them! Especially SENIQ 🤝