Not just football players but also fashion stars

Text by Alessio de’ Navasquez

“Men’s fashion today is greatly combining different realities, from the one of tailoring to the one of sport, dynamic lifestyle and street wear. The idea of a Football Fashion as an expression of personal style is going to be increasingly be influent. So why not to wear our favorite team’s t-shirt underneath a tailored suit? The exhibition will actually highlight this topic” said Markus Ebner, founder of the German fashion magazines Achtung Mode and Sepp Football Fashion, and curator, alongside Francesco Bonami, of the exhibition FANATIC FEELINGS – Fashion Plays Football.

As one of the most anticipated events of the latest edition of Pitti Uomo 94, the exhibition tells about the long relationship and parallel between the world of football and of fashion. Just think about Neymar, one of today’s greatest stars of the street style, and other icons like David Beckham,  Franck Ribéry, and then going back to George Best, Eric Cantona or Gigi Meroni, true fashion passionates and among the pioneers of the close relationship between football and fashion culture.

Conceived as an extensive multimedia installation, Fanatic Feelings enhances the male universe through the attraction exerted by the football’s field over fashion, emphasising the union between tailoring and sportswear. Designers create team uniforms or entire collections inspired by football clothing, while players sit in the front rows of fashion shows or become actual models.

The protagonists of the exhibition are the drawings by Karl Lagerfeld and Hiroshi Tanabe – one of the most important contemporary fashion illustrators – portraying famous footballers, as well as an extensive selection by Bonami of the Sepp Football Fashion archives from 2002 to 2018, with personalities like Kaka, Edison Cavani, Jérôme Boateng and Mesut Özil. This journey terminates with the documentary movie about Zinédine Zidane “A 21st century portrait”, made by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno. Artworks, archival materials, photographs and documentation are collected to draw the latest fashion trends, looking at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Edited by Fiammetta Cesana