football jersey trend 2023

One Vogue editor on treasured jerseys versus fashion ones and why it does and doesn't matter. 

Does it matter if you're a fair weather fan?

There was a period in my teenage years where I wore a St Kilda football jumper with the kind of religious fervour particular to teenage girls who are figuring themselves out.

I wore it on weekends. I wore it when my mother despaired that I should be wearing something nice. I wore it when my team won and when they lost. I especially wore it with my dad, who remains a passionate supporter of the football club that I soon enough dropped when I lost interest in football, moved to Sydney and committed the cardinal sin of being a complete turncoat and started barracking for the Sydney Swans.

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It would seem I was an unlikely person to wear a football jersey—I’m now the kind of girl (not like all the others!) who reads a book at sport games. Yet at the time I wore one, before I discovered fashion and reinvented myself again, I was kind of a real one. A true fan. 

And anyway, fashion has long co-opted football jerseys anyway. Or as British GQ put it, “football shirts are a fashion grail proper.”

Julia Fox at Milan Fashion Week earlier this year. Image credit: Getty Images

In recent years there’s been Demna riffing on a Manchester United 2002 Nike goalkeeper jersey at Balenciaga in 2020 and the likes of off—white, Stella McCartney and menswear designer Martine Rose doing a version.  There’s Rihanna wearing a Wu-Tang clan football jersey with a sheer maxi skirt and diamonds, Billie Eilish in a vintage Michael Jordan one and Julia Fox wearing a silky blue one to Milan Fashion Week earlier this year. Bella Hadid wore an Adidas x Balenciaga one in a Balenciaga campaign. Maybe you could chalk it up to the ‘bloke-core’ trend that has its origins in British sport and streetwear, but also what the lads and the dads might have worn to the match or the pub for a pint. It’s oversize soccer jerseys and Adidas Sambas (just try and get a pair now!) and low-rise jeans or track pants. 

But dressing for the ’fit will never have the same resonance as dressing for your team. A colleague wearing a Wales Bonner jersey tells me he definitely feels different wearing this than he does when getting up at 4am to watch an Arsenal game wearing his kit. 

Balenciaga autumn/winter 120/'21. Image credit: GoRunway.com

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Like everybody else I’ve totally jumped on the Matildas bandwagon. Watching the game on Saturday was one of the most stressful and also soul fortifying experiences—weren’t we all reminded about all of the best things about sport? How it unites us, makes us feel part of something? Have you too become a sudden and vocal armchair expert on soccer?

For the first time in years I’ve thought about buying another jersey. I’ve never desired one more. I want to wear my heart on my sleeve, a number on my back . But I also want to think about how I could wear a piece like this long after the last siren. The entwining of fashion with culture and sport can have the effect of making a football kit feel akin to wearing the band T-shirt and not knowing any of their music. But it also makes it bigger and broader and interesting. Through fashion and sport we can learn a lot about people.

Still, can you wear a kit if you’re a fair weather fan and haven’t stuck it out through the thin times, the losses, standing in the rain and tiny crowds and keeping the faith Ultimately I think so. Or at least, I hope so. Fandom has never felt more essential than it does now. Especially when it can remind you of the feeling of being a true one—even if just for a match.

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Originally published as football jersey trend 2023