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Welcome to the Scoop: a weekly email series in which we quiz fashion insiders on the stories of the week. This will be a way for the Vogue Business community to synthesize and reflect on the latest headlines and get a little inside scoop every Friday.
This week’s guest is the NFL’s first-ever fashion editor, Kyle Smith. Smith is the reason all these American football players are suddenly people you recognize — sitting front row at the shows and talking on podcasts about their ‘fits.
Over the past year, the stylist (who also created his role himself by simply identifying a gap in the market) has taken over tunnel walks and redefined them as moments of opportunity — for the players to express their personal style and for the league to make money. Abercrombie & Fitch , Breitling, and Hugo Boss are just three of the brands the league has collaborated with in the last year.
As his first official NFL season draws to a close, I caught up with Smith to get the scoop on this year’s Super Bowl.
Hi Kyle, what’s the scoop?
The Super Bowl’s coming up, and as you already know, Abercrombie & Fitch is the first official fashion partner of the NFL. What you didn’t know is that we’re holding a fashion show with Abercrombie & Fitch on the eve of the Super Bowl.
If you look at Abercrombie & Fitch’s history, it’s 134 years old. When I went to the brand’s headquarters to broker this deal, I saw a pair of trousers that had been worn by JFK there — I got goosebumps. So the show is inspired by their long, rich history, and then adding an NFL lens to it.
The event will be invite-only. I don’t want to give out too much, but it’s going to be star-studded as it’s right before our big celebrity flag football game. So every celebrity in town for the Super Bowl will be there. And so will I, wearing Abercrombie & Fitch — all black.
I feel like the fashion show as a format, outside of fashion weeks, is gaining traction.
I think the idea of a fashion presentation is changing. What I love about fashion is that it touches so many parts of culture, and sometimes it’s almost silly to look at it in a vacuum, right? So it’s like, how does fashion touch sports? How does it touch film? How does fashion touch all these other parts of life? Having a fashion show at the Super Bowl is celebrating the fact that people can express their identity through their football fandom. And football means so much to so many. It’s a very exciting way to engage more and more people with fashion.
You only wear black, so I know you will love this question. We got word that Gen Z is turning its back on it: what are your thoughts?
This is such a loaded question for me. I didn’t know that until you sent me that article. Honestly, I think it’s just a trend, and it might be a reaction to the doom and gloom of it all. I have a 19-year-old sister. I read sentiment about how Gen Z feels, and I get it. It’s really hard out there. If you can bring joy to your life in any way possible, whether it’s by wearing brighter colors or adding a charm to your bag, do it. Bring yourself joy no matter what.
There’s that classic notion that people who work with clothes wear black so that they can focus on other people’s clothes. Is that why you wear black?
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