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
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Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
