Sport and fashion have always been inextricably connected. Whether its tennis-inspired fashions on screens (we see you Challengers), or the football-inspired 'bloke-core' taking over runways from Balenciaga to Gucci to Versace and more. But excitingly, the ties between these two worlds have only gotten closer – especially as we have seen so many bonafide fashion design houses go in on designing official football team kits for both on and off the pitch.
On the precipice of yet another international football tournament at the Paris Olympics next month, we rounded up four of our favourite football x fashion crossovers that we think exemplify the power of a well-designed kit both on and off the pitch.
1. BEARE PARK
The Matildas are already style icons in their own right (how many little girls do you know that are wearing ribbons like Raso or low ponytails like Kerr since last August?), but Sydney-based fashion label BEARE PARK have kicked things up a notch with their official off-pitch suits. The 'Matildas Suit', as BEARE PARK has named it, is a superlative uniform worthy of our first-class players. Using 100% Australian merino wool woven in the Biella region of northern Italy, the soft grey pinstripe is cut and hand-sewn in Sydney into a suit comprising three pieces. Luckily for you, we got the exclusive first look at the Matildas suited up in BEARE PARK.
2. Yohji Yamamato (Y3)
Paris-based Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto is no stranger to the world of designing football kits. His Y-3 label (a collaboration between Yamamoto and German sportswear brand adidas) has had a decade-long partnership with Real Madrid (he designed their 2014/15 black dragon third kit) and has worked with clothing brand Palace on cult football jerseys and skatewear. But the designer had a homecoming this month, having unveiled his designs for the Japan National Football Team's 2024 Kits.
The Japanese national football squad has long been affectionately dubbed 'Samurai Blue' and Yamamoto’s designs – photos of which have begun to leak online – riffs on this with a navy colourway.
3. Martine Rose
Shortly before the FIFA Women’s World Cup final last August between England's Lionesses and the Spanish national team, British designer Martine Rose dropped an exclusive new kit comprising a pulled-neck football top and matching football shorts in white. The capusle was of course, brilliantly timed for the women's final, and seasonally themed around Martine Rose’s Autumn Winter 2023 collection. The London-based designer also partnered with Nike to launch a special-edition genderless ‘Lost Lionesses’ England jersey inspired by the story of the unofficial England women’s team who played in the 1971 World Cup.
4. Grace Wales Bonner
Is there a bigger name in designer sportswear at the moment than Wales Bonner? We think not. The British fashion designer's longstanding collaborative partnership with adidas has fuelled some of the most popular sportswear drops in the last few years – from sambas to tracksuits and more. But last year, the Jamaican Football Federation announced their partnership with adidas x Wales Bonner (aptly, Bonner is half-Jamaican on her Dad's side), and their men's and women's national teams – known as the Reggae Boyz and Girlz – were treated to newly designed home and away kits, a pre-match shirt and a reversible anthem jacket.
