Soccer and Pop Culture Team Up In Blokecore

Picture it: Soccer fever is spreading across the world. Team jerseys and retro sneakers are piping hot. Celebrities are filling stadium stands and Posh and Becks are all the rage. No, it’s not 1998. It’s the rumblings of blokecore, the latest Gen Z fashion core to go viral on Instagram and TikTok.

Defined by unisex styling, soccer jerseys (vintage and new), suburbia and U.K. football culture, the term is seeing accelerated growth with average weekly searches up 96 percent to last year, according to Trendalytics.

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The trend intelligence platform said social buzz for blokecore is up 5,700 percent with mentions from accounts like Yoox, Depop, and Highsnobiety, and market adoption (products that mention blokecore within their copy) are up 17 percent.

“We saw fashion creators taking jerseys and styling them back to unexpected items like pleated skirts or leather pants, and designers like Etro and Paradis leaning into the style on the runways,” said Kendall Becker, Trendalytics fashion director. “This also coincided with the rise of the Adidas Samba sneakers, which undoubtedly ruled 2023. Case in point, it became the perfect storm for blokecore to rise.”

The Samba, designed in 1950 for snowy and icy pitches, is the hero item of blokecore—so much so that Adidas CEO Bjorn Gulden said last year that the company is increasing production to keep up with the demand.

“Wales Bonner’s four-piece Samba collection which landed in May sold out the same day on Adidas’ website, with the silver metallic colorway gaining cult status as one of the biggest sneaker drops of the year,” said Karis Munday, Edited retail analyst. Interest in the Samba is spilling over to other soccer-inspired kicks. She said Rihanna’s Fenty x Puma return saw her Avanti football-inspired sneaker in metallic and black, which also saw same-day sellouts.

Indeed, designer collaborations with the likes of Wales Bonner, Gucci and Balenciaga have landed Adidas and its soccer heritage on runways and in several high-profile campaigns, including Balenciaga’s viral campaign starring Bella Hadid. The French fashion is dabbling in soccer jerseys, on and off the pitch. This spring Balenciaga designed kits for the Rennes, France-based football club Stade Rennais F.C, joining a growing list of designer brands with European soccer team partnerships.

Kim Jones, artistic director of Dior men’s collections, created a capsule for the Paris Saint-Germain team for the 2023-2024 season. Zenga dresses Real Madrid’s squad as the team’s “Official Luxury Travelwear Partner.”

“In much thanks to social media, trends and interests are becoming more global––users are exposed to styling cues seen across the world, artists that may have gained popularity in one country have begun blowing up in another more quickly than in the past, and so on. The phenomenon is hitting sports and fashion, too,” Becker said.

Soccer Star

Edited initially tracked interest in blokecore in May 2022, as Gen Z “reclaimed the aesthetic as their own on TikTok with its associations with ’90s fashion,” Munday said. One-part Sporty Spice, one-part normcore, the theme plays into the cohort’s unwavering nostalgia for millennium fashion.

Global and pop culture events have magnified soccer’s influence on fashion, as well. The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia—and the sexism scandal that followed when former Spanish soccer federation president kissed Spanish football star Jenni Hermoso on the lips without consent—captured headlines for weeks last summer. “Women’s football has had a significant role in its increased popularity, creating sister trend ‘blokette’ this year,” Munday said, noting that England and Jamaica were the top-selling jerseys post-World Cup for Nike and Adidas.

The build-up to the 2026 Men’s World Cup, which will take place in 16 stadiums across North America, is ramping up too.

Television shows like Apple TV’s “Ted Lasso” and “Welcome to Wrexham,” the docuseries chronicling actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s experience as the U.K. club’s owners, have kept the beautiful game in the pop culture zeitgeist as well.

And the U.S. arrival of the Lionel Messi, who won a record eighth Ballon d’Or for the best player in the world in November, has supercharged the sport’s star power. Messi’s debut game for Inter Miami, the David Beckham-backed Major League Soccer team, in July, was attended by Kim Kardashian, LeBron James and Serena Williams.

“The Messi effect has taken hold this year, with sellouts tracked across multiple retailers of his pink Inter Miami shirt,” Munday said, noting men’s, women’s and youth shirt sellouts within one week of his signing at Dick’s Sporting Goods. “This gave way to a series of imitation pink football jerseys in the mass market, noting sellouts at Asos and Stradivarius within one and two months of landing, respectively.”

Wear It Like Beckham

It is the late ’90s and early 2000s style of David Beckham, who became the poster child for the decade’s metrosexual craze, and Victoria Beckham, who millions of millennial-age women will forever think as Posh Spice, that will set the tone for blokecore’s evolution in 2024.

The couple’s bold style during this period has catapulted back into the limelight following the 2023 debut of “Beckham,” the Netflix docuseries about Beckham’s rise to global football stardom and how the public attention affected their family life.

Though David and Victoria’s current fashion sense frequently lands them on best-dressed lists, their coordinated outfits in the ’90s and penchant for low rises, tank tops, biker jackets, statement belts and blingy jewelry have become a hot topic on TikTok and the inspiration for thrift haul videos. TikToks tagged #poshadbecks have over 43 million views. Munday said the documentary has particularly influenced Gen Z “even if some weren’t born during or even remember the era.”

Becker added that the docuseries couldn’t have come out at a better time to further the next phase of blokecore. “It perfectly taps into the eras that Gen Z has their eye on and offers up a mix of posh and sporty style inspiration,” she said.

“They will undoubtedly put their spin on the aesthetic, already seeing leather bikers, low-rise jeans and tracksuit tops popular with the cohort, with imitation outfits already spotted on Gen Z ‘It’ couple Romeo Beckham and Mia Regan,” she said. “But Google searches were also reportedly up 4,000 percent for the Manchester United 1996-1998 home shirt post-premiere, indicating retro styles show no signs of slowing down.”

This article was pubished in Rivet’s winter issue. Click here to download the digital magazine.