424’s Guillermo Andrade Named Creative Adviser to Soccer’s Leagues Cup
Guillermo Andrade is not shy about saying that soccer saved his life.
The founder and creative director of the Los Angeles store FourTwoFour and streetwear brand 424 was born in Guatemala City, Guatemala, and immigrated to California at the age of nine. He grew up watching his father play the game and took it up himself, eventually earning a scholarship and landing a spot on a respected team in L.A.
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His love of the sport also led to a true appreciation of his Hispanic culture, something that shines through in his designs. Andrade started out creating high-end jewelry for shoe eyelets that he called Sneaker Crowns and has since partnered with everyone from the Arsenal football club, Hummel and Michelob Ultra to Adidas on soccer jerseys and performance apparel.
It’s stories such as these that Andrade will share in his new role of creative adviser to the Leagues Cup. “I’ve been obsessed with soccer my whole life,” he said. “It’s been a part of my vibe forever. Even when I wasn’t playing, I liked to look like I was about to play. So this opportunity is unprecedented.”
The Leagues Cup is a tournament between Major League Soccer and LIGA MX, the top professional soccer league in Mexico, where all 47 first division clubs in the U.S., Canada and Mexico will pause their respective seasons this summer for the first time to compete in this World Cup-style tournament in North America. It will consist of 77 matches and will run from July 21 through Aug. 19. The champion and the second- and third-place finishers will qualify for the Concacaf Champions League and have an opportunity to earn a spot in the FIFA Club World Cup.
To promote the tournament, MLS tapped Andrade to create and consult on cultural and storytelling initiatives that sit at the intersection of soccer, fashion, art and design. In addition, Andrade will design and develop limited-edition co-branded capsule collections for fans that will be sold at stadiums and third-party retailers.
“Teaming up with the inaugural edition of the Leagues Cup is incredibly humbling and such a unique opportunity,” Andrade said. “It is beyond an honor — this is a childhood dream come true. I cannot wait to share my journey and how soccer saved my life.”
As a lifelong soccer fan, Andrade said he “never heard of a tournament like this. It usually only happens in video games so it’s massively exciting.”
He said the association with MLS began innocently enough when he was having a creative meeting with a friend and the topic of soccer came up. Seeing Andrade’s passion for the sport, his friend said he needed to introduce the designer to his father, who just happened to work for MLS.
One thing led to another and Andrade was connected to David Bruce, MLS’ senior vice president of brand and integrated marketing.
“There’s a huge opportunity around the Leagues Cup, our newest event,” Bruce said. “So we thought, how can we position and market this in a way that is going to speak to a really diverse audience base? Is there a voice out there that can help bring this to life in a way that both audiences of the Mexican leagues and MLS can understand and respect and will enable us to get immediate credibility? We thought Guillermo’s background perfectly fit that kind of purpose. He’s a soccer person at heart, it really drives him in what he does and how he views the world, and you see it in his work. It just felt like a really authentic match and I think there’s so much that we can do together.”
Although the capsule design has not yet been completed, Andrade said there will be “different tiers of product for different purposes. The idea is to use the opportunity to celebrate cultures and reach out to different people potentially, and do some interesting collaborations and then specific capsules.”
In addition to designing and creating a line of fanwear, Bruce said Andrade will use his skills as “an unbelievable storyteller” to bring the games to life. That will include telling his personal experience as a Hispanic immigrant as well as “how he sees the game in everything that he does.”
The content will be distributed on Apple TV+, MLS’ partner for the Leagues Cup.
“The idea is to reflect the game from the point of view of the fans in the stands — where you support your club and become a part of the game,” Andrade said. “We always focus on what’s happening on the pitch, but my approach has always been about the people who are fortunate enough to be in the stadium. The first thing you do is find the T-shirt, cap or scarf, even if they’re bootleg. These are memories they will take home with them forever. So what we’re going to do is use this as our first step, to create a base for everyone to be comfortable engaging with the sport — these two cultures coming together in a very unique way.”
The promotional images for this partnership were shot in an empty L.A. Galaxy stadium. “It’s very Ted Lasso-y,” Andrade said. “It’s eerily similar to the opening scene — it was pretty fun.”
Bruce said Adidas is the official licensee of MLS and will also create the match ball for the Leagues Cup. While some of the clubs within the MLS universe have partnered with fashion brands individually, the deal with Andrade is the first for the league at large. “We believe his influence is going to rub off on the event in many ways, shapes and forms,” he said.
Bruce said the partnership will run through the end of this year and may be extended.
Andrade has had a major impact in the streetwear industry since he started his business 13 years ago. He opened his FourTwoFour store on Fairfax in Los Angeles in 2010 and it became an epicenter of sports, fashion and music, being among the first to sell brands such as Rhude, Martine Rose, Hood by Air, Fear of God and others. He launched his 424 label in 2014.
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