Sébastien Foucan's Kswiss sneaker launch
Perfect Fools, the international digital agency based in Sweden and USA, has created an interactive viral website for the launch of the new K-Swiss ‘Free Running’ sneaker, called Ariake, which was co-designed by the sport’s founding father, Sébastien Foucan.
The site – www.kswissfreerunning.com – is part of a global launch for a K-Swiss Free Running-inspired sneaker rolling out in Europe and the USA in February. Foucan was personally involved in the creation of the website, which sees the James Bond star exclusively demonstrate his gravity-defying athletic skills across giant letters of the alphabet.
On landing at the site visitors are prompted to type a personal message. Each letter then becomes an assault course for Foucan to perform on. Foucan was filmed performing moves across life size models of every letter of the alphabet from A to Z, plus a closing frame.
Foucan helped design the letter heights so that he could perform without post production tricks to undermine the two-day intensive shoot. The letter “T” for example is four metres high and Foucan performed many of his moves in one take.
The K-Swiss site is a contrast to traditional images of Free Running’s Parkour roots, which usually focus on raw urban street scenes. Perfect Fools’ site is deliberately clean, minimalist and controlled.
In an unusual departure Foucan is seen leaping letters and hopping over personalised messages in an almost clinical studio environment, which still respects the sport’s heritage.
Sébastien Foucan is the co-founder of Parkour and now leads an off-shoot called ‘Free Runnning’. While Parkour is about getting around a course in the fastest most efficient way, Free Running is more about aesthetics and artistic freedom of expression.
