Gobik presents the new kit of its flagship team under the motto: The Art of Celebration, a collaboration with African artist Karabo Poppy that goes beyond the launch of a new kit to position itself at the intersection of art, identity, and competition. A project that offers a cultural reading of sport, deliberately moving away from the usual codes of sports communication.
The collaboration is born as a real dialogue between two ways of understanding celebration: the one that arises from art and the one that emerges from competitive effort. It is not an aesthetic exercise, but a shared narrative that connects emotion, belonging, and collective expression.
Karabo Poppy is a South African illustrator, graphic designer, and urban artist based in Johannesburg, recognized for a contemporary visual language deeply connected to African identity. Her work combines color, geometry, and narrative to celebrate community, pride, and collective memory, and has been applied both in urban spaces and in cultural projects and international collaborations with brands such as Nike, Google, Coca-Cola, or Netflix. Her artistic practice always moves between the symbolic and the collective, using design as a tool for cultural expression.
The creative starting point is Karabo Poppy's work and her research around African Portrait Cloths: traditional African fabrics that serve as vehicles of identity, pride, and shared memory. Far from being mere decorative patterns, these textiles tell personal and collective stories and are used to mark moments of unity, celebration, and community. That symbolic weight is what is transferred to the design of the jersey of the new Gobik kit Factory Team for the 2026 season.
At the same time, competitive cycling shares a very similar drive. Competing is not just crossing a finish line; it is being part of a team, sharing codes, embracing collective effort, and celebrating everything that happens after the tension. The collaboration between Gobik and Karabo is situated exactly at that meeting point: when art and competition speak the same language without the need for explanation.
Under the claim The Art of Celebration, the campaign starts from a clear central idea: celebrating is not the end of effort, but an essential part of competing. Art celebrates through color, stroke, and rhythm; cycling does so through achievement, emotion, and shared experience. The new kit is born as a visual translation of that idea.
The centerpiece is the jersey CX Pro 4.0 unisex, conceived as the canvas on which Karabo develops her artistic proposal, bringing the language of the African Portrait Cloths to the world of competition. A garment designed to perform at the highest level, but also to communicate something deeper than performance. The set is completed with the culotte X, available in both men's and women's versions, which provides a sober and balanced technical base, reinforcing the competitive character of the set.
