Fashion And Football: Evolving Partnership

The paths of mainstream football and luxury fashion industries have been intersecting since long. What was done in a rather sporadic manner is now more structured and conducted in a planned way. Luxury fashion brands seem to take a step down from their calculated exclusivity and make a more focused attempt at expanding their audience horizon while maintaining their core positioning of aspiration and elegance.

Modern day mainstream sports especially club football resonate the same positioning strongly. A football club today not only represent their local community but cuts across geographical and social boundaries representing fans across the globe. When a team walks on the ground, they carry hopes, aspirations and emotions of millions of such fans. Luxury brands have realised the enormous power and goodwill of these clubs and are now keen to ride on these clubs to reach out to the expanded demographics.

In this blog, we look at the juxtaposing paths of football and fashion industries.

Breaking the Mold

Remember 1993, when a young Pep Guardiola walked ramp for the El Boig de Can Fanga shows? That was a brief moment when his individual understanding of style did not resonate with manager Johan Cruyff and was asked to focus on football rather. That was then. Both the industries and audiences have come a long way since then.

Football clubs have been consciously transforming into global brands with associated values and creating their individual positioning. Some clubs have metamorphosed into lifestyle brands themselves. Being fashionably stylish is now a well-established path which is well-liked and endorsed by the fans. Thus, the clubs are able to create a strong commercial value for themselves. Not only are the bigger, global clubs veering in this avenue but many smaller clubs have also attempting to create a niche for themselves. In such a scenario, it’s quite natural for the fashion industry to recognise this and act accordingly.

For long, luxury fashion brands kept themselves exclusive and associated with the ‘elite’ sports like polo, golf, yatching etc. Their mantra – desirable, sophistication and luxury which has worked with their audiences. However, the approach has changed. As the markets expand rising consumer awareness leads them to open new stores, their mantra is redefined with a twist – desirable and accessible to all, experienced by those who have taste. This is like throwing a challenge to the larger audience, ‘we are available to all, come and get us if you can’.

Thus, there is a greater number of conscious collaborations which are increasingly turning into partnerships.

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Developing Partnership

Recently, Real Madrid signed a new partnership agreement with Louis Vuitton, as an official sponsor of the club across its men’s and women’s football and basketball teams. The deal involves Louis Vuitton as the exclusive provider of formalwear, luggage, and accessories for all Real Madrid squads during travel and institutional engagements. The partnership is one of the examples of how luxury fashion brand is integrated with such a decorated, global brand like Real Madrid signaling an intent by both entities to extend brand equity across new sectors, audiences, and geographies.

This is the way both sectors look at each other in present period. There have been multiple such partnerships in recent times. Following a successful partnership with Fendi as the official off-field wardrobe partner for both men’s and women’s teams, AS Roma realised the potential of women’s football growth and signed a new partnership with Harmont & Blaine, an Italian high-end, smart-casual clothing company, becoming Official Style Partner of the women’s first team. AC Milan extended their partnership with Off-White™, an Italian luxury fashion brand founded by American fashion designer and entrepreneur Virgil Abloh, as the club’s official ‘Style and Culture Curator’. Similarly, Man United has deal with Paul White as wardrobe partner and so on.

From the days of signing individual players, fashion labels and football clubs are looking at a synergistic growth together. It is a developing partnership.

Next Level Association

Beyond being wardrobe partners, there are few examples of taking the association one level up.

Take the case of Giorgio Armani. We know him as one of the most successful fashion designers from Italy. With one move he managed to fulfil two business objectives. One, to establish his sportswear brand EA7 and two, he wanted to represent entire Italy and not just be limited to the northern part of the country. So, he took on the challenge of being the kit partner for SSC Napoli. An association that began in 2021 and four seasons later, it is still going strong. This move underscored his expansion plans and establish EA7 product line, a true synergy between fashion and football.

Another example is the deliberate and calculate moves from LVMH, a cornerstone of the luxury industry. For long, LVMH has been associated with sports as sponsor like 2024 Paris Olympics as well as a 10-year ($100m per year) deal with Formula 1 replacing Rolex SA. But the brand took a next level decision when they decided to acquire a majority stake in Paris FC, a football club who just secured its promotion to Ligue 1 after 43 years. This is alongside Red Bull who own a 15% minority stake and have thus become a part of the multi-club ownership (MCO) network. What makes this very interesting is the direct competition with PSG, a just across-the-road who have managed to establish themselves as a lifestyle brand especially after the partnership with Jordan from Nike.

How this plays out will be fascinating to watch but the point is fashion and football collaboration is growing in more ways than one.

In Conclusion

From elite sports to mass sports, the journey from luxury brands is well thought-out and strategic evolution. Partly due to the evolving consumer landscape and partly due to the business need, luxury brands have embraced spectator sports, especially football like no other.

Similarly, for football clubs who are growing on to become a professional business house riding high on media, such partnerships with luxury brands reiterate their stature as a ‘brand’.