(FILA North America) - FILA is celebrating a true innovator and the brand’s original creative director, Pierluigi Rolando, with a new collection of tennis apparel. FILA first launched the P.L. Rolando Collection on-court at the FILA-sponsored BNP Paribas Open in March. To pay homage to the legacy of a FILA icon, the brand is continuing to bring Rolando’s inspiration to life, with another limited-edition drop debuting in Paris. The second capsule of the P.L. Rolando Collection stems from Rolando's archival sketches dating back to the early 2000s.
Rolando helped to change the way the world looked at tennis fashion. His use of print, pattern, and fabrication solidified FILA as a boundary-pushing design house. He was the first to bring color to the court in 1973. His work solidified FILA as an innovator in the design space, disrupted expectations of what the modern game should look like, and set a course for FILA to become an iconic sportstyle brand.
FILA sponsored players Diego Schwartzman and Ashleigh Barty will wear the special-edition P.L. Rolando styles in Paris. The men’s and women’s collections were each designed in a sleek black and white colorway, with an eye-catching graphic pattern. Pieces are both elegant yet extremely bold, for a range of statement-making styles that will stand out on the red clay courts.
For men, the second capsule of the P.L. Rolando Collection includes a crew neck shirt, polo shirt, jacket, shorts, and pants. The women’s offerings consist of a tank top, skort, dress, jacket, and pants. The fashions include high-contrast, all-over graphic prints, balanced with solid blocks of color.
The corresponding FILA P.L. Rolando campaign celebrates the culture and creativity of the game. FILA has commissioned illustrators to create bespoke artwork to coincide with various tournaments throughout the year, that unites the worlds of art, style, sport and beyond, in a way that is fresh and relevant, as the designer’s original work had done in the 1970’s.
The collection is currently available on FILA.com. Visit www.fila.com/plrolando2 to learn more.