Six years into their partnership, PUMA and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) have found a new playing field: Milan Fashion Week. Together with Indian designer Dhruv Kapoor, the two debuted three statement jackets as part of Kapoor’s Spring/Summer 2027 collection, Presence, taking an established piece of Indian sporting IP and putting it through a high-fashion lens.

The move comes at a high point for RCB’s commercial and cultural pull. The franchise is currently valued at USD 269 million in 2025, boasting over 22 million Instagram Followers accounting for a 16.2 % share of engagement. Its merchandise is travelling just as strongly: PUMA’s 2026 authentic RCB jersey recorded a 300% year-on-year jump in sales and became PUMA’s top-selling apparel globally within its first week of launch.

Instead of launching the next PUMA × RCB chapter with a campaign, PUMA put it straight on the Milan runway. In a sharp departure from the usual sportswear drop, the brand used Dhruv Kapoor’s Spring/Summer 2027 show as the first reveal - turning one of fashion’s biggest global stages into the launchpad for what comes next. Three statement jackets gave audiences the first glimpse of the collaboration, months ahead of the wider PUMA × RCB × Dhruv Kapoor collection arriving for the 2027 IPL season. Kapoor took existing PUMA pieces and rebuilt them through his own design language, cutting and reconstructing performance textiles and technical components and layering them with handcrafted interventions. The result made the teaser itself collectible: three limited-edition runway pieces designed to create heat now, before the collaboration lands at scale next season.

Over six years, PUMA × RCB has grown beyond match-day merchandise into fan experiences, participation-led campaigns and #RCBEverywhere, which encourages supporters to wear the jersey as part of everyday life. Milan pushes that thinking one step further: from wearing fandom beyond the stadium to placing its codes within fashion itself. It also offers a different playbook for sports marketing. In a category often built around athlete campaigns, sponsorship visibility and seasonal merchandise drops, PUMA is using fashion to extend the lifespan and cultural reach of an existing sports property. RCB brings a highly engaged community, Kapoor brings a distinct design point of view, and Milan gives both access to a conversation far removed from the cricket calendar.

Milan is the first drop, not the finale. A larger PUMA × RCB × Dhruv Kapoor collection arrives for the 2027 IPL season, taking what started as three runway statements into a full collection. Each of the three styles will be produced in a limited-edition collection, available through select PUMA and Dhruv Kapoor retail and online channels.