Kill the Wall
Shangguan Zhe runs Sankuanz under a concept he calls Kill the Wall
—which shows up in everything: fragments of contemporary art mixed into vintage sportswear, uniform aesthetics made strange, visual language that doesn’t respect clean boundaries. He treats streetwear like actual art rather than product, pulling from subcultures and following a real grammar: oversized midsoles that look almost deliberately clumsy, earth tones interrupted by neon, 90s shoe shapes rebuilt at new scale.
The Chinese streetwear scene has been making noise for years, but there’s something different about Zhe’s work. There’s honesty in it. He’s not trying to teach you about design history or fill a market gap. He’s just following an idea—this idea of breaking down walls—wherever it leads. You see that less than you’d think in collaborative work, where most of the time it feels like nobody had an actual opinion about anything except the business terms.
Puma brought him in for a capsule that reads like a Shangguan Zhe primer: Cell Endura, Cali, RS-X, Thunder, all rebuilt with characteristic thick soles and reflective details, neon against muted tones. The pairing makes sense on paper—Puma gets cultural credibility without risking much, Zhe gets distribution to places he wouldn’t reach on his own. But the real test is whether something this specific survives being flattened into a scroll feed. Specific visions don’t usually make it through that intact.
Still, the perspective is visible from the photos. You can see what he was thinking. Most collaborative announcements don’t give you that much.