Copyright cityam
Once dominated by major sportswear brands like adidas, Nike, and Under Armour, the conventional sports marketing landscape has undergone a significant transformation, dramatically reshaped by the modern intersection of fashion and sport. These collisions are taking a number of guises. From high-end fashion houses launching official club formalwear (check out the recent Amiri x FC Barcelona partnership), limited streetwear capsule collections (Arsenal x Aries, AC Milan x Off-White, Manchester United x Balenciaga), together with athlete own ranges (e.g. Serena Williams x Aneres, Ronaldo x CR7) and sports stars as global fashion brand ambassadors (e.g. Emma Radcanu x Dior, Son Heung-min x Burberry). As Mike Amiri, Founder of Amiri so perfectly put it, “Soccer and fashion share a spirit, born from passion, precision, and creativity. Each is about mastering your craft and expressing who you are through movement and form”. Embracing fashion in sport So, why is it happening? What sports are embracing it? And who is lagging behind? First and foremost, the widespread crossover is strategically beneficial for all parties; it’s a win-win situation for brands and business. Clubs transition from being on-field teams to global lifestyle brands, engaging existing fans, whilst attracting new and crucially younger, Gen Z/Gen Alpha demographics, who value ‘hype-drops’, scarcity and cross-cultural entertainment. On the other side, fashion brands secure a sense of belonging that only sport can deliver. Gaining immediate access to passionate communities, securing new revenue streams and mass global relevance. For the fan, they want to feel part of something bigger than the match day experience. These off-pitch collections strengthen their loyalty by offering personal expressions of their teams’ identity, with each new announcement providing fresh, non-game-related content for fans to engage with across the likes of TikTok and Instagram. TikTok alone has heavily impacted the football-fashion crossover, driving trends like Blokecore (‘pairing football jerseys with baggy trousers and sneakers’) and propelling retro football shirts into the Gen Z market, most noticeably with women who are reclaiming a clothing item once heavily associated with male-dominated sports culture. Talking of a female audience, the rise of women’s sport presents a crucial new investment area for fashion, fuelled by a merchandise market estimated at $4bn per year according to data from the Sports Innovation Lab and Klarna. High-profile collaborations – such as the WNBA x Skims and the Arsenal x adidas x Stella McCartney collections – demonstrate how women’s sport is quickly reshaping conversations around style, culture, and influence. Fashion crossover Formula 1 is a brilliant example of a sport that has recently leveraged this crossover to boost its cultural relevance successfully. The appointment of A$AP Rocky as Creative Director for the Puma/F1 partnership demonstrated a strategic move into high-fashion and streetwear. Similarly, Lewis Hamilton’s long-standing role as co-designer for Tommy Hilfiger transformed the Mercedes paddock into a global fashion moment, significantly amplifying the brand’s cultural reach. Undoubtedly this approach has played a part in the impressive 12 per cent year-on-year increase in Formula 1’s global fanbase. Rugby on the other hand remains largely untapped, especially at a domestic level, where it feels both essential and timely for clubs desperately seeking new fans and revenue streams beyond the traditional rugby audience, to engage. And interestingly, the timing is spot on, with traditional rugby shirts experiencing a resurgence, appearing everywhere from streetwear to high fashion catwalks, notably in Pharrell Williams’ x Louis Vuitton menswear collection. Safe to say, the sheer volume of these collaborations suggests that this crossover is now a strategic, year-round business approach rather than a temporary trend, with fans, clubs and brands ready to continue riding the wave. Alex Royce is associate director at Hope&Glory PR
