Throughout this spring 2020 health crisis, with the suspension of all official competitions, football fans were condemned to devouring reruns of matches, more or less vintage, broadcast on specialist channels or on the web.
A little Proust madeleine for football fans who like to immerse themselves in the sporting exploits of their favorite players of yesteryear. If on the field, the outfit of these modern-day heroes has not fundamentally evolved from a stylistic point of view with the essential triptych “jersey, shorts and cleats”, outside the “field”, the dress code of these idols, for its part, has undergone multiple (re)volutions. Review of details.
Never without my “jogging” (1976-1998)
Footballer Jean-Pierre Papin in April 1992 in Aix-en-Provence. (Photo Pool APESTEGUY/SAMPERS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
Before 1998 , it's hard to spot a footballer without his... sportswear, even off the pitch. Like Jean-Pierre Papin, who, in civilian life, never takes off his tracksuit to pose nonchalantly for photographers during a walk in the mountains with his dog. Always confined to their roles as athletes, the players unanimously adopt a total "jogging" look, whether it's when leaving the locker room or doing their shopping at the supermarket.
(Photo by Stephen Munday/Allsport/Getty Images)
Since 1976 and the epic of the “Greens”, the Saint-Etienne team in the European Cup, football has fascinated the French, but footballers, for their part, have not yet become passionate about fashion... While a few originals sometimes allow themselves a slightly eccentric haircut, few venture onto the slippery terrain of the shops of great designers.
An exception that proves the rule, Eric Cantona left his blue jogging pants to parade for Paco Rabanne in 1993.
(Photo by William STEVENS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
In the world of top-level sport, stylistic ostentation is not yet the order of the day. Loose-fitting tracksuits are emblazoned with a three-stripe logo , a very cock-a-doodle-doo Le Coq Sportif and a host of transalpine brands in vogue at the time like Kappa and Diadora.
In terms of materials, we oscillate between the legendary “peach skin” and fluorescent nylon. We were still far from today’s technical clothing.
Very “casual” world champions (1998-2006)
Zidane gets his measurements taken not for a pair of custom jeans, but for the making of his wax statue. (Photo by Fernando Camino/Cover/Getty Images)
On September 1, 1998, there was a slight change of style. The President of the Republic at the time, Jacques Chirac, awarded the Legion of Honor to the 22 players making up the victorious team. At the Elysée, the entire team wore the same outfit, like a uniform: a gray suit. , a crisp white shirt and a sky blue tie. French football becomes truly chic for the first time and goes beyond the framework of a popular sport to become a social phenomenon.
In 1998, the French world champion team was received at the Elysée Palace. (Photo by Jacques Langevin/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)
France then discovered new popular heroes. Untouchable icons on the pitch, our Blues still retained an accessible and close image to the people as evidenced by the style of Zinedine Zidane, Laurent Blanc or Fabien Barthez, very casual. The ordinary of the extraordinary in short.
Laurent Blanc and Fabien Barthez, with Flavio Briatore, boss of the Renault F1 team, in Monaco in June 2001 (Photo by Alain BENAINOUS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
Our players do not indulge in eccentricity. If on the pitch, Aimé Jacquet's team shines brightly with its azure Adidas jersey, which paid 9 million euros to be the team's partner, off it, the time is for sobriety.
Faded Levi's 501 jeans, tucked-in shirt or plain t-shirt, light sweater on the shoulders, Marcel Desailly, Bixente Lizarazu or even play it classic, sober and casual. At this time, in 2001, the latter begins to model for Dries Van Notten or Paul Smith.
Bixente Lizarazu, here in 2004. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Bongarts/Getty Images)
In the process, the French team's goalkeeper, Fabien Barthez, began flirting with top model Eva Evangelista on the fashionable beaches of Saint-Tropez: the era of "bling-bling" among our footballers was underway!
The era of “bling-bling” (2006-2018)
(Photo by Ray Tamarra/Getty Images)
The coming decade marks a real turning point in the appearance of these stadium gods. Rocked since the training center by Hip-Hop culture, the kings of the round ball seize the dress codes of their idols with silver microphones and never hesitate to overdo it a bit like Djibril Cissé who changes his look at each training session. The latter multiplies the hair attempts, going from platinum blonde to neon green between two matches.
In January 2020, he will even parade for Jean-Paul Gaultier.
Shiny gold chains, collector sneakers, baggy pants and US sports caps screwed on their heads, our French flagships no longer hesitate to embody the bling-bling style that would make rapper 50 Cent look like a majorette.
Von Dutch and Ed Hardy, brands from the galaxy of French designer Christian Audigier are in vogue among our players. You have a preview of the creations just below.
A Christian Audigier fashion show in March 2007. (Photo by Mark Mainz/Getty Images)
Unfortunately, their sporting performances on the pitch are the opposite of their clothing styles: far from brilliant! So much so that after a strike led head-on by Patrice Evra, in the middle of the first round of the World Cup in South Africa in 2010, his teammate Nicolas Anelka took to his heels via the first plane to Roissy.
For the occasion, dressed all in black, he appears at the airport with a hooded sweatshirt and smoked sunglasses that almost make him look like Darth Vader's cousin.
Footballers = Fashion Icons (2018-2020)
After this somewhat agitated period, punctuated by a nasty clash between Benzema and Valbuena concerning a dark sex-tape affair, calm has returned! In 2018, if the codes of Hip-Hop culture reign more than ever in the world of football business, our new world champions have become true fashion icons who proudly squat the front rows of the capital's fashion weeks.
Neymar Jr., Kevin Trapp and David Beckham attended the Louis Vuitton Fall Winter 2018-2019 Paris fashion show (Photo by Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images)
Twenty years after their first title, it's Nike's turn to break the bank and pay 43 million euros to equip our Blues on the pitch, instead of Adidas. A true social phenomenon, Kylian Mbappé pays particular attention to his sense of elegance, the spectrum of which varies depending on the occasion, from streetwear to suits.
(Photo by Michael Regan - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
A dashing twenty-something, the Bondy native is the darling of the entire Instagram generation who carefully scrutinize every detail of his looks in his stories. In “civilian” life, the star striker of the Blues walks along Avenue Montaigne as a neighbor to find his outfits.
Under a sponsorship contract with the famous brand with the Oregon comma, the star is just as fond of Balenciaga streetwear outfits during his trips to César, the trendy restaurant in the 8th arrondissement of Paris.
Another luxury ready-to-wear brand highly prized by our footballers (including Kyky): Philipp Plein! The German brand arouses a real passion for the entire sphere evolving in the world of football. Aware that he is much more than a footballer, Kylian Mbappé never hesitates to put on a very sober tailor-made suit for major ceremonies.
"Footballers are becoming acceptable again"
To dig a little deeper into what lies behind these looks, we went to interview Vincent Grégoire, director of the Consumer Trends and Forecasting Division at the Nelly Rodi trend consultancy.
The look of footballers has changed radically over the past four decades. How do you interpret these changes?
First of all, there is a before and after 1998! Before the victory of the French team in the World Cup, footballers walked around only in tracksuits offered by their equipment suppliers. In 1998, we witnessed the birth of a real team spirit, the famous France “Black-Blanc-Beur” was very homogeneous in terms of look and then a new generation arrived…
What are the clothing characteristics of this new generation?
This new “post-98” generation was younger, more immature. We entered full force into a real cult of personality. The players felt constrained in the outfits imposed by their clubs which did not allow them to be easily identified on the field.
So they opted for very “original” haircuts and multiple visible tattoos. It was also at this time that the wave of “footballer’s wives” appeared, real fashion “accessories” for them. They really had an assumed bad-ass side that displeased public opinion, like Franck Ribéry or Karim Benzema who posted photos on social networks of themselves devouring overpriced gold leaf steaks in Dubai...
What is the situation today and what will be their trends tomorrow?
Under the leadership of a player like Kylian Mbappé, footballers are becoming “outgoing” again. Sure, they still worship luxury brands like Dolce&Gabbana or expensive streetwear brands like DSquared, but they are also becoming “new intellectuals.”
They get involved in high-profile charities and develop their own series with their equipment suppliers. Players have become more than just coat hangers, they want to instill new values, they are almost becoming organic.
