Sporting Fashions
How soccer clubs are mixing the field and fashion
In 2018, French Soccer champion Paris St. Germain positioned themselves as one of the world’s most progressive sports clubs by emerging as a lifestyle brand through their Nike Air Jordan campaign. The drop marked a pivotal moment in sports marketing as the team successfully leveraged Paris’s namesake and its iconography in fashion and culture to carefully curate their brand ambition off the field. In just one year after the launch, Nike’s Jordan spinoff hit its first billion-dollar quarter. P.S.G has since moved to collaborate in the luxury sector with Koche, Manish Arora, and L.A. hatmaker Nick Fouquet.
P.S.G.’s brand diversification director recently commented to Bloomberg on how these partnerships are unique, exclusive, and garner organic celebrity support “to join forces in a time where consumer habits are changing rapidly.” The ability to secure exclusive contracts now serves to separate team brands from the rising athleisure crowd.
This widespread image utility that P.S.G. has built through fashion has amplified their merchandise value: this summer, P.S.G.’s brand renewed a 10-year partnership with sports merchandising giant Fanatics—marking their largest financial agreement with a sports team. Other clubs have taken notes from P.S.G.’s success: Italian soccer team Juventus recently announced their latest ICON Collection, a collaboration with popular DJ and Producer Loco Dice.