Behind the lens: Imruh Asha on authentically styling PUMA’s Suede campaign

If you’ve picked up a copy of Dazed over the last few years, you’ve come across Imruh Asha’s work. The Dutch stylist and creative director has become one of fashion’s most recognisable image-makers, shaping editorials and campaigns for some of the industry’s biggest names while developing a visual style that feels distinctly his own. Earlier this year, PUMA enlisted him to bring that style to the set of the brand’s latest ‘Never Not Suede’ campaign, following a group of young creatives experiencing a new city and scene for the first time. 

Before making a name for himself across the industry, Asha’s first steps into fashion came through a concept store in Amsterdam, where he worked closely with clothing and began making images for the shop. It was a moment when social media was starting to change how fashion imagery circulated, and the store became an informal entry point into styling as a practice. “I came from a smaller city where I did not even know there was an art school that existed,” he explains, reflecting on his early creative inspirations. “I would look at pictures sometimes, and I would only look at the picture. I would not think about what would happen behind it, the stylist, the makeup artist.” Working surrounded by collections and emerging designers, he began collaborating with photographers and building small visual stories from what was available in front of him, slowly shifting from working with clothes to shaping how they were seen.

Similar to the characters in the campaign, moving from a smaller Dutch city to the capital Amsterdam opened up access to a creative industry he hadn’t previously been exposed to. But it was later moving to Paris that pushed his work into a more international space. “I was never really scared of taking a step,” he says. “I’ve always been very happy in the place I was already. When I was working in that store, I felt like I had the best job ever. Then I found out there was a better job than that and tried to get there and got there and was also happy. I would not say I wanted to grow out of frustration; it was out of obsession and excitement”

For Asha, styling is never isolated from casting or from the people wearing the clothes. On set in Athens, each individual member of the cast’s energy helped complete the story he was telling through his looks. “When I am creating a look, it really has a lot to do with casting as well. Obviously, sometimes it starts without casting and thinking about characters. This time, there was a big youth culture mood board. We started looking at real people and how they would wear a PUMA shoe,” he explains. 

With this PUMA Suede drop in particular, the Bloom inspired a sense of femininity that informed how the characters came to life. “There are these girls who wear a shoe that has a lace element. We were looking at these kinds of shoes [and thinking] which types of girls are wearing shoes with lace elements? Maybe it’s a kawaii kind of girl that wears leg warmers with it and layers her skirt over her pants,” Asha explains. “It’s about being very imaginative and imagining how these characters that walk around in this world would actually do it.”

While so much of styling is looking at the world around you and reinterpreting what you see, throughout the Never Not Suede shoot, it is evident that Asha prefers to allow authenticity to shine through each individual. “There is a guy in the cast called Paul, and he is really a skater guy. So we prepared a skater look. You can really see if you give the right look to the right person, it’s so natural to them,” he explains. “That’s also really the fun of this shoot. It’s about keeping things authentic and really personal, creating these characters that could actually live today.” 

That idea carries into the Suede itself, which for many sneakerheads does not need reintroducing. Decades after its first iteration, the Suede still sits within contemporary styling while keeping its recognisable heritage identity intact. For Asha, this becomes about movement and how the shoe responds to different contexts without losing clarity. In practice, that comes through subtle decisions around colourways and proportion, shifting tone depending on the look while ensuring the Suede remains readable whether layered or stripped back. The aim is to show how it holds its shape as it is reinterpreted in different scenarios and moments.

At its core, the campaign is about stepping into unfamiliar spaces, meeting new people and discovering opportunities through those encounters. Asha’s own journey follows a similar trajectory, from a small Dutch city to Amsterdam, then Paris, with each move expanding his understanding of both fashion and the wider world around him. Today, his source of inspiration remains straightforward as he chooses to look beyond the world of fashion and pay attention to the different people around him. “I am always looking outside. I am very curious about how people dress and how people dress in different places in the world.” It’s an approach that feels increasingly valuable in an industry often obsessed with predicting the next thing. For Asha, the answer or creative spark is usually already there; it just requires continuous curiosity and attention.

Head to the gallery above to see more BTS pictures of Imruh Asha on set.