Nike Releases Tailored Clothing Collection With Martine Rose
LONDON — Traditionally, tailored clothing and athleticwear have sat on opposite sides of the international soccer pitch, with players wearing one for travel and formal occasions, and the other for play.
Martine Rose and Nike have disrupted that model, stitched the two together and created a collection of tailored suiting that gives new meaning to the term “sportswear.”
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The collection, Nike x Martine Rose, features a player’s suit jacket, a pair of trousers, a trench and a shirt designed for female soccer players and based on British tailoring codes.
The collection will be released later this month to coincide with the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup soccer games, and marks a major moment for Rose, and for Nike.
“It’s a first for Nike to do tailoring, and that in itself is really exciting, and a privilege to have done,” Rose told WWD, describing the collection as “more than just tailoring. It’s about the women wearing it, it’s about strength, resilience, beauty, power. I wanted the women to feel powerful, like the men often do.”
Rose added: “More than that, it’s a suit, there’s no gender attached. It starts a conversation about gender, and hopefully, one day, we aren’t talking about gender in sport, and it’s just about the sport.”
She said designing the collection and understanding women’s soccer specifically “has been a massive learning curve and an eye-opener for me. It has been a journey I have gone through with Nike.”
Soccer culture and athleticwear have always formed a big part of Rose’s collections, and this is not the first time that Nike and Rose, whose work is inspired by subcultures, diverse communities and cultures on the fringe of mainstream society, have thrust women’s soccer into the spotlight.
In 2021, the Nike x Martine Rose “The Lost Lionesses” jersey was a genderless tribute to England’s women’s team of 1971, which was written out of the history books despite its achievements.
The jersey was released in tandem with a virtual experience and film called “The Lost Lionesses.” It marked 50 years since the English female soccer team, made up of women ages 13 to 21, traveled to Mexico City to compete in the Women’s World Cup.
As part of the experience, Rose created a 3D snapshot of a British public housing estate, complete with laundrettes, shop fronts and English flags. Once viewers made their way through this virtual landscape, they were invited to watch a film by Rose and the photographer Rosie Marks showing a mixed cast of characters playing soccer everywhere from the corridors in their apartment blocks to makeshift indoor pitches.
Artists, models and athletes — including an ex-professional New Zealand player; a player for a disability team in London, and the first female referee at an English soccer league match — came together in the short film, which was a prelude to Nike x Martine Rose.
The navy jacket and trousers are made from 100 percent wool and are manufactured in Italy. Both styles feature a repeated “M” pattern as a jacquard knit, and the trousers also have a Nike x Martine Rose tag above the back pocket, an adaptation of the authentic team label on Nike soccer replica kits.
There is also a beige and navy trench that comes with extra sleeves attached at the shoulders. The added sleeves can be worn at the back of the jacket or tied at the front, a nod to the soccer scarves typically worn by fans in the stands.
The trench is stamped with a globe made from Nike swooshes on the left sleeve, while the shirt has a Martine Rose crest, a swoosh and a mock “Martine” sponsor’s logo.
The crest is inspired by the Croydon coat of arms, which nods to the south London area where Rose was born. The shield, in the center of that crest, resembles an iron, and there is also graphic Rose motif that reflects patterns commonly associated with soccer.
Rose and Nike have also created Air Sheer Stockings, a knee-high sock produced in nylon/spandex mix; Echo Shield Sunglasses with co-branding on the frame, and a new iteration of last year’s Nike x Martine Rose Shox MR4, in three refreshed colorways.
The new footwear is a fusion of a dress shoe; the Nike Shox R4, and the Shox MR4. Rose and Nike manipulated proportions to stretch the original silhouette into a mule shape, lifted the heel and squared off the toe, adding a formal edge to the design.
The 2023 Nike x Martine Rose collection will be available globally starting on July 25 on Martine-rose.com and through select Nike stockists from July 27.
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