Switzerland and South Korea aren’t two countries you’d instinctively pair together.
Switzerland sits in the heart of Europe alongside Alpine peaks and luxury watch-making. South Korea occupies South East Asia, where neon megacities, and a relentlessly fast pace of life have shaped a distinctly modern identity.
They speak different languages. They write in different scripts. Their food, histories and cultures couldn’t be more different. And over 8,000 kilometres of land & sea separate them. But despite the distance and culinary differences, these two countries share something remarkably rare: an obsession with getting things right.
An obsession that is obvious from Switzerland’s immaculate streets and famously precise railways. South Korea’s spotless cities and one of the world’s most efficient public transport systems. From the engineering that has made Swiss watches the global benchmark for precision, and in the manufacturing expertise that has turned South Korea into one of the world’s foremost producers of cars, electronics and technical innovation.
So actually, while it might not seem it at first, South Korea and Switzerland do have quite a lot in common, and that’s exactly why the recent ON Running & Post Archive Faction collaboration makes so much sense.
Founded in 2018 by Dongjoon Lim and Sookyo Jeong, Post Archive Faction (PAF) is South Korea’s answer to Prada Sport – if Prada Sport had a love child with an alpine outerwear brand, then raised it on the dancefloors of Berghain. PAF is cool, understated, technical, and just a little bit mad. It’s difficult to categorise, and that’s exactly why we like it so much.
As for ON Running, well, if you’ve walked down any Merseyside high street over the last five years, the brand needs little introduction. But just in case you haven’t, ON was founded in Switzerland in 2010 with the aim of applying the same obsessive pursuit of precision that made Swiss watchmaking famous to the world of running footwear.
Both brands were born with an understanding that if they could be successful in their quality-obsessed home countries, they could be successful anywhere. And this understanding is what has brought the two together time and time again.
The pair first joined forces in 2024 with Current Form 1.0, a collaboration that fused ON’s performance-first engineering with PAF’s experimental approach to technical design. Inspired by Zurich’s River Limmat, the collection proved that ON & PAF spoke a remarkably similar design language – even if they came from opposite sides of the world.
The two brands would end up hitting it off so well that they launched a second instalment of Current Form later that year. Then, Current Form 2.0+ a year after that. And now, finally, the long-awaited Current Form 4.0 has hit the shelves – which might just be the duo’s best work yet…
Centring around ON’s Cloudboom silhouette, Current Form 4.0 combines everything that the duo have learnt in their previous collaborations, and filters it through that quality and detail-obsessed Swiss-Korean lens. The result is a capsule collection of footwear that looks borderline otherworldly.
Technically and structurally, ON and PAF may have drawn inspiration from the spirit of their home nations. Aesthetically, however, they’ve taken cues from a creature that inhabits bedrooms around the world, the moment the lights go out, and you’re trying to sleep.
We’re talking about moths, and the two brands have taken direct inspiration from the creature’s metamorphosis from cocoons that gradually peel and unshroud themselves until the moth is ready to take flight. It sounds abstract, and not quite the kind of thing that would translate well into footwear, but ON & PAF have presented it flawlessly through an intricate overlay and wrap construction on the Cloudboom.
It might not make you think of moths right away, but combined with the campaign images, the inspiration is obvious.
Current Form 4.0 is, in many ways, a collaboration built on unlikely pairings. An unlikely partnership between Switzerland and South Korea. An unlikely source of inspiration in one of nature’s most overlooked creatures. And an unlikely reminder that the most interesting ideas rarely come from taking the obvious route.
ON & Post Archive Factions Current Form 4.0 collaboration is currently available to purchase from SEVENSTORE.
