A Thread about football and fashion
Two experts weigh in on the current hype.
Do you remember a couple of years ago when everyone was captioning their pictures: “Name a better duo, I’ll wait.” The phrase comes to mind when thinking about football and fashion, a relationship which has swiftly accelerated in the lead up to this year’s FIFA women’s world cup. Here, I ask two experts to unpack what’s going on.
Fun fact before we begin: Women’s football has existed for almost as long as men’s, and drew big crowds during WW1 (1914-18). It was then banned in 1921, with the FA stating that football was “quite unsuitable for females”. The ban lasted until 1971!
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Felicia Pennant, founder of Season Zine
Which football team do you support?
Chelsea FC - I’ll be blue til I die. In terms of country, I’m born and based in England, so England is one, but my dad’s Jamaican so Jamaica is no.2. I can’t wait to wear my adidas Wales Bonner jerseys this summer. And no.3, my mum’s Nigerian. The last few Nigeria kits have been epic. Football jerseys mean so much more than great design. I view these as symbols of my identity, of my heritage, of my link back to the homeland and the diaspora. In an ideal world I need to get a triple shirt with Nigeria-Jamaica-England on it.
When did your love affair with football begin?
I discovered football on my own. It was the Euro 2004 underdog story of Greece beating Portugal to win. Seeing a very young Cristiano Ronaldo crying and thinking, “Why is this guy crying, it’s just football?” I got hooked by the drama of it all - it was very soap opera!
Do you see a link between your love of football and your love of fashion?
100%. I went to Central Saint Martins and did my thesis on it. I found a brilliant book called The Fashion of Football by Paolo Hewitt and Mark Baxter, which unpacks the correlation between fashion and football since the 1960s. I was captivated by that book, and did my whole thesis around metrosexuality and how footballers are portrayed in fashion magazines.
I was also just noticing that in at least one fashion show per season, there was a football reference. It actually isn’t so mind-boggling when you think about it - there are billions of football fans in the world, so of course some of them work in fashion.
But I think that the other thing to say here is that there’s a distinction between football fashion and football merch, and I think that’s where sometimes people get lazy. By merch I mean garments to express fandom more explicitly. I think where it does cross over is when you have Wales Bonner designing a Jamaica kit and putting it in the context of a runway. The same with Martine Rose. Even Pharrell put a football jersey in his debut Louis Vuitton show (and there was also a galaxy of football stars in the audience.)
How have you been able to bring the two together in your work?
I started my magazine, Season Zine, in 2016 for many reasons, the first one being the lack of representation for female fans at the time. You’d get these hideous “Sexiest World Cup fans” - none of these women had a voice or a name, and there wasn’t anyone of colour. Being labelled with narrow stereotypes like ‘tomboy’, and being patronized with pink-washed merch. Why would I want a pink Chelsea ball if Chelsea’s colours are blue and white?
Season’s mission statement is to counter the fact that modern football culture is male, pale and sometimes stale. Season exists as a printed zine, we’re on social media, there’s the Season podcast, a newsletter, events. I’ve also been lucky enough to contribute to Vogue, Elle, The Face, Matches and more recently Cosmopolitan and Grazia, writing about football and fashion.
What kind of relationship do fashion and football have currently, and how have you noticed this shifting in recent years?
When I interviewed Martine Rose for Issue 10, she said that the connection between football and fashion is just culture. I also think that with the rise of women’s football, it’s meant that women have felt confident about designing football-inspired collections and pieces, which is definitely a phenomenon. People like Sophie Hird, Nouveau Nova, Renata Brenha. There are so many great female designers who are upcycling football jerseys, which taps into fashion’s wider move towards eliminating clothing waste.
What do you consider the most memorable collision between fashion and football?
David Beckham in the sarong! The way he was ridiculed, and people were like, “What the f***?”, but he was so confident in what he was doing. I don’t think anyone else could do anything like that again. Now when footballers have these kind of moments, it feels really contrived in a way that never did. Without David Beckham, there’d be no footballers trying to get into this space. Before the sarong, I guess David James was already modelling for Armani - that was more this idea of footballers in underwear shoots being cast as modern gladiators. Another moment is the Y-3 show where Zidane scored a goal at the show, which was part of the spectacle.
How do you see the relationship between football and fashion evolving?
I think we’ll see more footballers partnering with high fashion houses. We’ve had US footballer Megan Rapinoe in a LOEWE ad, Lionessess Chloe Kelly and Alex Morgan in a Calvin Klein ad. Héctor Bellerin walked the runway for Louis Vuitton; Trent Alexander Arnold Alexander did Bottega Veneta. Raheem Sterling was in the new Burberry ad; Marcus Rashford partnered with Burberry.
I’d also love to see more of the stylists that help them get dressed - in the same way we do Law Roach, Zendaya’s stylist. We know about Harry Lambert and Dominic Calvert-Lewin, but there are other stylists helping craft these seminal looks and stretching the boundaries of what modern masculinity is, so I think they should be credited.
And designers? There are designers that are known to be football fans, like Donatella Versace and Miuccia Prada. Then you have Martine Rose who wants to make a comment on uncovering hidden women’s herstories, like she did her 2021 ‘Lost Lionesses’ Nike collab. You also have Hattie Crowther, who’s creating non-binary football corsets. My biggest thing is that I want people that are upcycling to stop doing patchwork! Koché did it in 2018, it’s now 2023. There are people like Alyssa Groeneveld, who’s doing drapery which is so experimental and original - so I feel like we can move beyond patchworking football jerseys!
Daniel-Yaw Miller - Reporter at the Business of Fashion
Which football team do you support?
I’m an Arsenal fan through and through. My Dad is a lifelong Arsenal fan, so I’ve been going to games and supporting the club since as long as I can remember. I grew up idolizing legends like Thierry Henry, Rachel Yankey and Patrick Vieira.
How have you been able to bring the two together in your work?
So much of my journalism is dedicated to the booming intersection of sport and fashion. I've written articles such as ‘Why Luxury Brands Want in on Football’, and ‘How Athletes Went From Selling Merch to Building Fashion Brands’ — where I interview various athletes including footballers about their fashion ventures — which I discuss in detail on The Business of Fashion's The Debrief podcast.
What kind of relationship do fashion and football have currently, and how have you noticed this shifting in recent years?
Just a few years ago football and fashion still held each other at arm’s length. Over the past two years, every major luxury brand has — or has attempted — to make inroads into the football world. Gucci signed Jack Grealish last year and no one is exactly sure why to this day. Now football clubs have whole sections of their marketing budget dedicated to fashion or lifestyle partnerships. You have crossovers like Arsenal Women x Stella McCartney, Real Madrid x Zegna and AC Milan x Off-White. Kit launches are now treated as brand campaigns and clubs release new season jerseys based on vintage designs from their “archive”.
What do you consider the most memorable football x fashion moment?
I think it's impossible to talk about fashion and football without giving credit to Héctor Bellerín, the former Arsenal player-turned-runway model, designer and sustainability advocate. When he walked for Virgil Abloh in Louis Vuitton's SS20 men’s show, it was the most high-profile of many things he did which broke boundaries of what fans, the media and fellow footballers thought was acceptable for an athlete to do in fashion, whilst still at the peak of their playing career. Now, a whole generation of players across the men’s and women’s games feel more comfortable running their own brands, showing up at fashion week and fronting campaigns thanks to Héctor.
How do you see the relationship between football and fashion evolving?
I think fashion brands are finally waking up to the potential of football. It’s taken a long, long time, but we’re finally seeing some interesting things happen. Women’s football is where brands appear to be the most comfortable when it comes to releasing the more interesting partnerships and taking things beyond one-off collaborations. Adidas have Wales Bonner up their sleeve; Nike and Martine Rose are developing some great off-the-field gear; and Prada was recently announced as the partner for the China Women’s National Team ahead of the Women’s World Cup.
You say it took “a long, long time”. Why do you think it’s happening now, as opposed to in previous years?
I think that football and fashion took a long time to gel because fashion brands were so wary of the reputation of football, and how damaging the association to hooliganism was in the 90s and early 2000s to brands like Burberry, Stone Island, and before that, Dr Martens. But football has come a long way culturally from those days and is now a far “safer” arena for brands to activate in.
What’s your go-to look for when you’re off to watch a game?
My go-to game day ’fits blend my favourite brands with my classic Arsenal home kit top, or the iconic red and white scarf.
You can buy past issues of Season Zine here. For more on football culture, listen to i-D’s i-Dentity podcast ‘Footballmania: The subculture of sportswear”, and check out Circle Zero Eight magazine, dedicated to the intersection of fashion and sport.
Threads of the week
Styling my new Cecilie Bahnsen X ASICS sneakers. Worn with a vintage denim vest, vintage boxing trousers from Depop, a Garbage TV shirt-dress and some ‘G’ socks I got free with a Glossier parcel a few years back.
Loose Threads
CC:Disco’s new track is fire! (So is her style.)
If you’re going to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, don’t miss Mary O’Connell’s show. She’s so funny and has got great style. Go and see my brother’s show too :)
Feels like it’s the summer of the fashion wedding.
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