As a culture defining trend of the past year, blokecore’s football-centric sensibility saw terrace style revitalised for a modern breed of fashion fan. Gone was the slim denim and Stone Island or C.P. Company soft-shell combination, replaced with oversized football shirts, baggy jean shorts and, more often than not, a pair of adidas’ zeitgeist driving collaborations with Wales Bonner, or even an in-line Samba trainer. While this latest movement in streetwear culture has seen football style come to the fore, the world’s most popular sport has often strayed into the realm of fashion, with cross over collaborations, football shirt aesthetics and unexpected runway appearances introducing a distinctive blend of classic sporting design and forward-thinking fashion that pre-dates the current obsession with football.
In the modern day, football and fashion may walk hand in hand down the tunnel, or the runway, depending on which way you look at it. While fashion’s interconnection with the sport has become more deeply entrenched throughout the past decade, the seeds had been planted long before. From England star David Beckham’s iconic ensembles throughout the ‘90s and ‘00s that graced the cover of every weekly gossip magazine, or Catalan footballer, and now Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola walking the runway for Antonio Miro in 1993, footballers have been tentatively dipping their toes into fashion for a number of years. Continuing the trend, recent fashion forward stars Hector Bellerin, Eduardo Camavinga, and Moise Kean have all walked for celebrated runway shows, permeating the world of fashion further than mere fashion week attendance.
