MAM
Converse x PLAY Comme des Garçons celebrate 15 years with single hearts design return
Mumbai: In 2009, Converse and Comme des Garçons commenced a partnership that brought CDG’s ‘Hearts and Eyes’ logo onto the Chuck Taylor All-Star for the first time. Across the ensuing 15 years, this iconic collaboration has both helped inform the modern approach to footwear collaborations and produced more than 20 iterations that have been celebrated and sought after across cultures. In celebration of the partnership’s 15th anniversary, the brands have joined forces to reissue the design that started it all—the Converse x PLAY Comme des Garçons OG Single Hearts pack.
While the collaboration’s debut design appeared on the Chuck Taylor All-Star, Converse and CDG are bringing the OG Single Hearts onto the pinnacle Chuck 70 and Chuck 70 Ox for the first time.
The Converse x PLAY Comme des Garçons OG Single Hearts pack keeps the logo details untouched from 2009’s OG offering. Since then, the PLAY line’s signature logo has appeared across several Converse silhouettes—the heart-and-eyes logo: a signifier of the collaboration’s minimalist yet optimistic and unassuming style. The logo has been seen peeking out amongst polka dots and multiplied and magnified across the canvases of Converse’s most beloved styles.
The styles within the OG Single Hearts pack will include the Converse x Comme des Garçons OG Single Hearts Chuck 70, priced at INR 12499, and the Converse x Comme des Garçons OG Single Hearts Chuck 70 Ox, available at INR 11,999 in sizes UK 5 to UK 15. CDG’s ‘Hearts and Eyes’ appears along the lateral side of the Chuck 70s, which arrive in classic Milk and Black colourways with white foxing and toecaps. The limited-edition Chucks are crafted in premium canvas for an elevated feel, and feature cobranded sock-liners, OrthoLite cushioning for all-day comfort, and a vintage license plate.
The Converse x PLAY Comme des Garçons OG Single Hearts pack commercializes on 27 September on Converse.in
Brands
Samsung certifies 1,000 Maharashtra students in AI and coding
The South Korean electronics giant marks its first large-scale skilling push in the state, with women making up nearly half the national programme’s enrolment
PUNE: Samsung has put 1,000 students in Maharashtra through a certified training programme in artificial intelligence and coding, the largest such drive the South Korean electronics company has run in the state and a signal that corporate India’s skilling ambitions are moving well beyond the boardroom brochure.
The certifications were awarded under Samsung Innovation Campus (SIC), the company’s flagship corporate social responsibility programme, which launched in India in 2022 with the stated aim of democratising access to future-technology education. The 1,000 graduates were drawn from four institutions: 127 from Savitribai Phule Pune University, 373 from Pimpri Chinchwad University, 250 from D.Y. Patil University’s Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology and 250 from Anjuman-I-Islam’s Kalsekar Technical Campus. All completed training in either AI or coding and programming, the two disciplines Samsung has identified as the critical pillars of the digital economy.
The programme does not stop at technical training. Soft-skills development and career-readiness modules are baked into the curriculum, a deliberate attempt to close the gap between what universities teach and what employers actually want.
“India’s digital growth story will ultimately be shaped by the quality of its talent pipeline,” said Shubham Mukherjee, head of CSR and corporate communications at Samsung Southwest Asia. “As technologies like AI move from the periphery to the core of industries, skilling must evolve from basic training to building real-world capability. This milestone in Maharashtra reflects how industry and academia can come together to create a future-ready workforce that is both globally competitive and locally relevant.”
The Maharashtra drive sits within a rapidly scaling national effort. Samsung Innovation Campus trained 20,000 young people across India in 2025, hitting its stated target for the year. Women account for 48 per cent of national enrolments, a figure the company cites as evidence of its push for an inclusive technology ecosystem. The programme is implemented in partnership with the Electronics Sector Skills Council of India and the Telecom Sector Skill Council.
Samsung, which is marking 30 years in India this year, runs SIC alongside two other initiatives, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow and Samsung DOST, as part of a broader effort to build what it calls a generation of innovators with both the technical depth and the problem-solving mindset to thrive in a fast-moving digital world.
A thousand certified students is a tidy headline. Whether they find jobs that match their new skills is the harder question, and the one that will ultimately determine whether corporate skilling programmes like this one are genuine pipelines or well-photographed gestures.
