COOGI Returns
COOGI was the uniform of 90s hip-hop—rappers wrapped themselves in those oversized, garishly colored sweaters like they were armor and status symbol combined. I grew up watching those videos, Biggie and others in those knits, the excess of it. By the early 2000s it had faded into the nostalgia bin with everything else that decade touched. But fashion cycles. Puma brought the line back at Battery Harris in Williamsburg, and the event felt like stepping back into that mythology.
The setup had that specificity you notice: an in-house bodega with 90s candy, Clark Kent and Megan Ryte on the decks, rappers circulating through the space. People actually cared about being there, which is rare for a product launch. The new Puma x COOGI Clyde doesn’t pretend at anything—it’s the sweater material blown up onto a shoe, all that garishness and excess on your feet. A shoe that announces itself.
What struck me is that COOGI’s return doesn’t feel like resurrection. It feels inevitable. The people who want to wear oversized colorful knitwear and make a statement aren’t different now than they were in 1994. And the younger rappers who showed up—they didn’t grow up with COOGI, they discovered it through videos, through the mythology. That’s enough.
There’s something honest about fashion that doesn’t try too hard. No reinvention, no modern twist, no ironic distance. Just: here’s the thing we had, it was beautiful, we’re bringing it back. And people showed up.