Women’s Soccer Needs More Fashion Moments
Ahead of a landmark Women’s World Cup, men’s teams have Dior and Off-White, but women’s soccer is sitting on fashion’s next major untapped goldmine.
The women’s sports renaissance of the past few years has placed a global spotlight on several different leagues and organizations, funding new teams and building on a newfound demand for women athletes in the public eye.
That spotlight has created pathways for sports like baseball and hockey to get their first major professional leagues in decades, placed athletes like Angel Reese and Trinity Rodman on pedestals and made women in sports the norm rather than an anomaly. It has also highlighted the discrepancies between men’s and women’s sports, particularly from a cultural perspective.
Comparing women’s soccer to its male counterpart is often an overplayed and dated way to view the game, but when it comes to fashion – or the lack thereof – it is completely valid. In men’s soccer, fashion has become an integral part of the sport, evolving from something players and teams engaged in recreationally. Luxury formalwear partners, players positioned as brand ambassadors and style influencers, as well as a slew of media platforms focused on how players dress, have solidified soccer’s place as the most fashionable sport in the world. Women’s soccer doesn’t quite contribute to that title.
Male players have become regulars in the front row during Fashion Month, boasting partnerships with some of the biggest brands and luxury labels in the world, from Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton to Gucci. They front campaigns for SKIMS, Calvin Klein and Burberry. They are ever-present in the industry, yet when it comes to women’s players, that same presence is nearly nonexistent.
Despite soccer being every brand’s biggest inspiration right now, the women’s game is starving for a groundbreaking fashion moment. When you look at the buildup to the 2026 World Cup, major brands and kit manufacturers started teasing collections, collaborations and pop-ups over a year before kick-off. The product ranged from player-specific looks to fan collections, ensuring everyone had a way to represent their country in style on and off the pitch.
With less than a year to go before the Women’s World Cup in Brazil, where is that same hype? One of the first and last good fashion moments in women’s soccer to reach a global audience was nearly four years ago at the 2023 World Cup. Despite an early exit and somewhat underwhelming performances by USWNT standards, there was no doubt who the best-dressed team at the tournament was.
Teaming up with Nike and Martine Rose, the United States was one of the only teams at the last Women’s World Cup with an official formalwear partner, wearing custom Martine Rose suits, sporty sunglasses and the highly-coveted Nike Shox MR4 mule. The look is yet to be outdone, and with little to no competition three years later, it might stay that way for a while longer.
While a Men’s World Cup allows every team to flex their style, working with local luxury designers to craft bespoke looks tailored to each nation, the Women’s World Cup has historically been all standard-issue tracksuits and sneakers. That needs to change, and giving next year’s tournament the same treatment as 2026 is where that shift begins.
Women’s soccer’s fashion crisis doesn’t start and end with international tournaments, though. At club level, the lack of collaborations, fashion partners and freedom of expression is glaringly obvious once you compare leagues, players and even the men’s and women’s teams at the same clubs.
Despite the majority of major men’s teams having a formalwear partner, those partnerships rarely extend to the women’s team. Barcelona, Real Madrid and AC Milan are exceptions to the rule, working with AMIRI, Louis Vuitton and Off-White respectively. Though it would be amazing to see what Jonathan Anderson could do with a women’s soccer team, Paris Saint-Germain’s partnership with Dior is exclusive to the men’s team, similar to Manchester City’s deal with C.P. Company.
Many teams work with menswear brands, so a partnership with the women’s team isn’t always a feasible option. However, most women’s teams lack a formalwear or fashion partner altogether. So that begs the question: what is stopping fashion from seeing the value in women’s soccer?
The answer is lost in decades of suppression, misogyny and the lasting effects of bans that stunted the sport’s growth. However, in the United States, women’s soccer is writing its own rules when it comes to fashion.
The NWSL has always been on its own wavelength, with teams not tied down to a male equivalent or over a century of club history to represent. It is fun, outspoken and quintessentially American. The league has given the players and the fans a say in how stylish it can be, opting for tunnel walks and even dabbling in league-wide collaborations.
Working with designer Domo Wells and her brand Dead Dirt, one of the NWSL’s first fashion collaborations landed earlier this year, setting the tone for future designs. Expanding on her creative direction work with Washington Spirit, Wells made knitted jerseys for all 14 teams in the league, redefining fanwear and fashion in the stands. Though Wells is the first to partner with the league in this way, she certainly won’t be the last as the NWSL continues to grow.
A few teams in the league already have prominent fashion and beauty partners, most notably ALIGNE and Gotham FC, and Angel City’s partnerships with Pacsun and Anthropologie. Barely ten years old, the NWSL is growing at an exponential rate and boasts some of the most valuable women’s sports franchises in the world, showing older leagues, clubs and organizations just how marketable women’s sports can be when you put the effort in.
Women’s soccer still has so much untapped potential when it comes to fashion. Some of the most fashionable female athletes play the beautiful game, from Jaedyn Shaw to Melvine Malard. They are starting to get their moment in the spotlight, sitting front row during fashion week and leading major campaigns like their men’s football equivalents, but there is still so much more to discover in the budding relationship between women’s soccer and the world of fashion.
The gap between women’s soccer and high fashion is narrowing, though it remains a work in progress. Led by the NWSL’s willingness to experiment with tunnel walks and increased creative expression from players worldwide, a new blueprint is being written – one where soccer and sartorial expression are inextricably linked.
As the commercial value of women’s sports continues its record-breaking ascent, the fashion industry can no longer afford to overlook the pitch. With the 2027 Women’s World Cup around the corner, let’s hope that happens sooner rather than later.
