The Sport Fashion Purpose Matrix
What the Super Bowl tells us about the future of fashion, and what Oprah has to say about it.
Have you got your score card ready? Because we just entered a new era. This weekend’s Super Bowl will go down as the start of the next leg in fashion’s culture busting romance with sport. Why? Because TNT (that’s Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chief’s Travis Kelce) gave us (non-football) fans exactly the romance we were looking for. She flew across 9 time zones to cheer him on, he took his team to a thrilling overtime victory in a nail biting finish. The on pitch kiss sealed it: entertainment, fashion and sport are seeing each other - big time.
What’s this got to do with fashion? Well the sub plot is that the global international audience live sport brings, meant that Taylor’s Dion Lee crop top ($720), along with her Area black Crystal Slit Jeans ($795) and her vintage-inspired Chiefs windbreaker jacket ($130) sold out in nanoseconds. Plus, player arrivals at football stadiums are now A Thing. Witness:
Fashion brand Amiri dressed Kelce for the photo opp in “a custom sequin-embellished tailored bouclé shirt jacket and coordinating bouclé baggy trousers.” I mean creds to Travis for going there. Sequins for a football game? You saw it here first.
Everything that Taylor represents to her audience - independent, empowered, millennial, romantic - coupled with everything Travis and his team represent - underdog resilience, GOAT athleticism, physical prowess - are now united in one intoxicating mix, to an audience of epic proportions. Fashion is going to want a piece of that.
Why this matters was neatly summed up by Oprah in the other internet-busting moment of the week - Edward Eninful’s valedictory issue of British Vogue. He brought the noise when he managed to assemble no less than 40 of the world’s most in demand women for his final cover.
The rest of this post is for my paying subscribers. If you would like to subscribe, you are also invited to an evening at the Ivy Club in London next week, when I am joined by members of the fashion community to discuss second hand, rental and circular fashion. Cocktails and canapés on us!