What goes together better than the world of fine jewellery and tennis?
Fine jewellery brand Kinn Studio and heritage tennis brand Prince are answering that question with their latest collaboration that combines the best of sport and luxury.
Built around the concept of modern heirlooms and vintage-inspired pieces for everyday life, Kinn Studio focuses on permanence and sentimentality within the fine jewellery space.
Meanwhile, Prince occupies a different but equally nostalgic space entirely as a heritage brand established in the 1970s; Prince is synonymous with the golden era of tennis. The brand is deeply associated with sophistication and the polished visuals that define tennis fashion culture today, having evolved into a lifestyle label that positions tennis as both a sport and aesthetic identity.
We sat down with Kinn Studio founder Jennie Yoon to delve deeper into the behind-the-scenes concepts of the campaign and to learn more about what this partnership entails.
What role does nostalgia play in the collaboration, especially with a legacy brand like Prince?
Nostalgia gets used a lot in fashion, and most of the time it means looking backward. That’s not what this collaboration is about. The pieces that actually last in someone’s life are the ones that feel like they’ve always belonged to them.
The clearest visual reference for me was Princess Diana on the tennis court. We posted about her organically a while back, and the response confirmed what I already felt. People are still drawn to that image because of what it represents. Sport, but on her own terms.
My dad played his whole life, and the racket in his hand was never really the point. It was the hours on the court and who he was when he was out there. Jewelry works the same way. The piece matters less than what it carries.
So the nostalgia here isn’t aesthetic. It’s structural. It’s in designing something that could have existed thirty years ago and will still make sense thirty years from now.
Tennis has become increasingly influential in fashion and lifestyle culture. Why do you think the sport resonates so strongly with consumers?
Tennis is one of the few sports where the off court life is just as defined as the sport itself. The clubhouse, the post match lunch, what you wear walking in and what you change into walking out. It’s a full world, not just a game.
The other piece is that tennis signals taste without trying. There’s an inherited elegance to it that doesn’t need to be explained. The customer drawn to tennis is often the same one drawn to Kinn. They’re looking for something that holds. The resonance is a lifestyle that has always existed quietly, finally being recognized for what it is.
But what makes this collaboration so compelling is how naturally these two worlds intersect, with the partnership tapping directly into tennis culture heritage, merging Kinn’s heirloom quality craftsmanship with Prince’s courtside legacy. We asked Yoon to expand deeper into why this partnership works so well with a heritage brand and how this translates in the campaign.
What inspired the partnership between a legacy tennis brand and a modern fine jewellery brand?
Prince has been on my vision board for years. Their history is the kind of legacy you can’t manufacture and earns its place. The real click happened in the past few years when I started learning to play. My dad—who used to play—told me he could coach me and I never listened. Now that I’m picking it up myself, I notice how every small detail changes the game. The tension of the strings, your posture, the millisecond of when you meet the ball. None of it is obvious from the outside, but all of it is what separates a good shot from a great one.
That’s the same belief that lives inside Kinn. The details most people never notice are the ones they always feel. When I looked at Prince, I saw a brand that had been doing exactly that on the court for over 50 years. The collaboration is two brands that already shared the same philosophy, finally meeting in the same place.
Can you share any behind-the-scenes moments from campaign ideation to execution?
We had been trying to get in touch with Prince for years. This wasn’t a brand we wanted to chase a deal with. It was a brand I wanted to build a world with, and that distinction matters. The tennis bracelet was the obvious entry point, especially with Chris Evert being the reason the world even calls it that. But the obvious version of this collaboration was never the one I was interested in making.
The real work happened in the direction I gave the team early on. Most tennis campaigns default to either performance and the technical specs of the racket/sport, or they lean into athleisure and the prettiness of the lifestyle. Both are predictable. Neither was ours.
I wanted the campaign to live across all of it. The locker room, the court, and the hours after you leave the court, all in the same world. That’s where this customer actually lives, and that’s where the brand has the most to say. Once the team understood we were building our own lane, the storytelling came easy.
What aspects of Prince’s heritage were the most important for Kinn Studio to preserve or reinterpret?
Prince never needed to be loud to be iconic. That’s the part of their heritage I cared about most. They built a brand that lasted over 50 years by getting the details right, not by getting louder every season. That kind of restraint is rare and it’s the same belief Kinn is built on.
The other piece was longevity. I wanted to design something a woman could have worn thirty years ago and still feel relevant in, and that will hold up years from now. Prince has already proven it can do that on the court. We wanted to design pieces that could do the same off of it.
The reinterpretation came from recognizing that the things that made Prince last are the same things that make jewelry last. The collection is the response to what happens when you let those two beliefs come together.
Dropping just in time for the French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open, the collection will be staggered into three different drops, each mirroring its respective tournament aesthetic.
May 19th’s drop, based around the French Open draws inspiration from the warmth and softness of the clay, leaning into rounded forms and shield motifs.
Wimbledon’s drop on June 11th reflects the grounds’ iconic green grass courts and heritage tradition with Emerald green accents, and more refined constructions reflecting the precision and legacy traditions of Wimbledon.
Finally, the US Open drop on August 18th highlights the durability and precision of the hard court with Diamond forward silhouettes and classic tennis styles.
Rooted in the connection between both brands: precision, balance, proportion, and tension, the collection draws inspiration from the mechanics of tennis racquet strings and the construction of fine jewellery.
Were there any archival Prince references, vintage campaigns, or specific eras of tennis culture that inspired the collection/campaign?
The real anchor for the collection was the Grand Slams. We built the color story around the three court surfaces. Clay for the French Open, grass for Wimbledon, hard court blue for the US Open. Each one carries its own world. Roland Garros has that old world European weight. Wimbledon is tradition in its purest form. The US Open has a swagger that only New York can claim.
Working within those three palettes let us phase the collection across the season in a way that felt earned. Each collection ties to a moment the customer is already paying attention to, so we never had to invent a reason for the next release.
To extend the partnership, a range of lifestyle pieces will be released alongside the jewellery pieces, including caps, tees, knitwear and socks to broaden the range into everyday life, as well as an immersive retail activation designed to capture the collection aesthetic.
How are you planning to activate the collaboration in your LA and NYC stores?
We’re building 3 activations around the Grand Slam calendar. Each tournament is its own world, and our stores are where we bring that world to life. We’re opening with the French Open at our New York store. The room is designed to feel like Roland Garros itself, down to the white geraniums, the clay court details, the vintage Prince rackets shown alongside the real history of the tennis bracelet, and ball boys passing green jello cubes. Every detail is a small nod, and together they build the world.
From there, Wimbledon comes next, and then the US Open in September, split across our two locations. The activations aren’t add ons to the collection. They’re how the collection is meant to be experienced.
Ultimately, by merging Prince’s courtside heritage and Kinn’s modern heirloom philosophy, the collaboration goes beyond the intersection of jewellery and sport, capturing the legacy that both worlds share.
Timed alongside the year’s most iconic tournaments, the collection mirrors the rhythm of the tennis season itself, with the collaboration feeling less like a trend-driven collaboration and more like a natural meeting point between two brands built to endure.
The Kinn Studio x Prince Collection can be shopped at: www.Kinnstudio.com, and shop our favourites from the collaboration here.
