Heron Preston has signed a long-term creative partnership with Formula E, the all-electric motorsport championship, with an initial apparel capsule built on recycled cotton sourced from pre-consumer factory offcuts, production scraps and deadstock fabric from past collections.

The collaboration makes its public debut at ComplexCon Los Angeles this Saturday and Sunday. The preview capsule spans T-shirts, long-sleeves and hoodies made using fabrics from Preston's eX-Ray concept, presented alongside a GEN4 Formula E car carrying an exclusive exterior livery designed by Preston.

For sourcing teams, the material story is the substantive part of the announcement. The designer positions eX-Ray as the benchmark tier for what he calls the brand's most advanced "L.E.D." — less environmentally destructive — products, examining every layer of a garment, from composition to who makes it. In this first phase, the cotton feedstock is pre-consumer textile waste rather than post-consumer recycling, a simpler waste stream to certify and scale but one that depends on consistent offcut availability from factory partners.

"Formula E is re-engineering what a race car can be. EX-Ray does the same for clothing," Preston said in a statement to WWD. "For Formula E, eX-Ray recycled cotton is the foundation of the collection, so the same thinking behind the car is in the clothes."

Commercial parameters remain undefined. Pricing, production scale and distribution are still being explored as the partnership develops, Preston said — meaning the ComplexCon showing is a concept preview, not a confirmed commercial rollout. Buyers and licensing teams should treat the capsule as a signaling exercise for the partnership's direction rather than an orderable line.

The longer-term materials pipeline is more ambitious and less developed. Preston said the vision is to recover materials from the sport itself — carbon fiber, metals and other components from the race cars — and explore what those inputs could become through design. "We haven't started that yet, but the opportunity is to understand what those materials could become," he said. Repurposing carbon fiber composites into soft goods would require new reclamation and processing capacity, and no timeline, supplier or certification framework has been announced.

The partnership could expand into fan merchandise, accessories and new uses for racing materials, though Preston acknowledged the wider product roadmap is still taking shape. For Formula E, a merchandise program tied to a designer with an upcycling record offers a differentiation play in licensed motorsport apparel, a category dominated by conventional cotton and polyester fanwear.

The GEN4 car design carries Preston's signature orange with chrome and matte detailing, plus text-based graphics flagging the vehicle's specifications, including "Zero Rare Earth Minerals" and "600kW Max Power" — effectively turning the race car into the marketing surface for the collaboration's materials thesis.

Preston framed the deal as a natural extension of a decade of upcycling work. "A few years ago I took my brand back and rebuilt it around a simple idea: build things honestly," he said. "Real materials, real function, no pretending. It connects the upcycling work I've been doing for a decade with a sport that's genuinely trying to change its industry. It feels less like a departure and more like the work growing into a bigger arena."

With pricing, volumes and distribution still open questions, the first concrete read on the partnership's commercial viability will come when the preview capsule moves from convention-floor concept to a confirmed production and retail plan.