A dinner table that doubles as an RC racing track sounds slightly unhinged, which is exactly why it worked. For the PUMA x A$AP Rocky x Outlander Magazine dinner, we headed to Oakley Court in Windsor and filled the table with friends and tastemakers from our wider network. The night was all about celebrating the arrival of the A$AP Rocky x Puma "Straycats", alongside the latest chapter of a partnership that keeps getting more interesting.
The Straycat is a brand new silhouette inspired by a trail shoe from the PUMA archive, handpicked by Rocky and brought back with a much more rugged attitude. With its Vibram sole, tyre inspired traction, distressed finish and technical detailing, it sits somewhere between trail footwear, motorsport and Rocky’s own slightly chaotic design world. Basically, it is not trying to play things safe, so throwing a normal dinner to celebrate it would not have made much sense.
Instead, we built a custom table that was as a fully working RC track, allowing everyone to race cars while having dinner. People were barely seated before things got competitive, with cars flying around corners, getting stuck between place settings and occasionally heading in completely the wrong direction. Normal dinner behaviour, obviously. It also gave the evening a much easier rhythm, because rather than everyone staying politely on their side of the table, people were shouting across it, challenging each other to races and getting way too invested in cars they had only just learned how to drive.
A magician moved between guests throughout dinner, performing tricks in smaller groups and leaving people genuinely confused. At one end of the table someone would be fully locked into a race, while at the other, everyone was trying to work out how something had disappeared directly in front of them. Between the cars, the magic and the setting, the whole evening felt playful without becoming overly programmed.
A$AP Rocky arrived at Oakley Court straight from the plane after travelling from Paris. He sat down, caught up with guests and got involved with the racing, rather than treating the dinner like a quick appearance before disappearing again. Speaking about his work with PUMA and the energy surrounding the collaboration, Rocky summed it up perfectly: “I've been fighting to make PUMA lit, and we fuckin' lit.”
Around the table were Ciesay, TJ Saw, Knucks, Pa Salieu, Jasmine and Bella Muller, and more of our friends from across fashion, music and culture. It was a proper mix of tastemakers who each bring their own ideas and energy into what they do, but the night never felt like one big networking exercise. People came to eat, catch up, race tiny cars and celebrate the Straycat with Rocky.
Everyone left with a pair of Straycats and an invitation to Rocky’s show at The O2 on Sunday, carrying the celebration beyond Windsor and into the rest of the weekend. The motorsport references were there, the new shoe was at the centre of it and Rocky was around the table getting involved, but nothing felt like one long product presentation. It was friends, tastemakers, good food, RC cars racing between the plates and a magician making everyone question what they had just seen. A slightly mad way to launch a shoe, but for the Straycat, it made perfect sense.
