The Store That Dressed Like Versailles for One Night

The pop-up had been turned into something like a Rococo antechamber—cascading florals, gilded excess, a room clearly staged to make a sneaker launch feel like a minor aristocratic event. That’s the Rihanna approach, and it works. The PUMA Fenty collection was worth the theater. From the first pieces I’d seen before arriving, it was obvious she wasn’t just licensing her name to a sportswear brand. The Creeper sole. The oversized silhouettes. Athletic shapes pushed toward sculpture, toward fashion, toward something that people who had never bought a pair of PUMA shoes in their lives were suddenly interested in.

The Berlin crowd that showed up included Nikeata Thompson, Suzie Grime, Fernanda Brandão, Lena Lademann, and Wana Limar. DJ Tereza ran the music. The room smelled like sugary cocktails and someone’s expensive perfume and the collective heat of everyone dancing. Things got kissed. Things got very drunk. Nobody left when they were supposed to.

What that season proved about Rihanna was something she’d go on to demonstrate even more completely with Fenty Beauty: she has taste, and the discipline to apply it consistently. The sportswear-to-fashion bridge had been theoretically visible for years—everyone could see the gap, nobody credible was crossing it—and she just walked across it and made it look inevitable. The collection didn’t need a Rococo Berlin pop-up to make its case. But I’m glad there was a party anyway.