Every single viewer and in-person attendee comes for a different reason to the Super Bowl. Some are hardcore football fans who love the game, others are rooting for one team over another, and some just want to see the halftime show. This time around with a rematch of the Chiefs versus the 49ers, who played each other in 2019, there was a fourth reason to go watch the Super Bowl: the fashion on the sidelines. This may seem like a peculiar thing to say, but if you’ve read anything about Taylor Swift, you may know what I mean. If you don’t, let me introduce you to a rising fashion star who just broke through in sportswear: Kristin Juszczyk.
You may know Juszczyk better as the wife of 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk. After all, Kristin Juszczyk’s brand was created after her love for sewing was reawakened by making a couple’s costume per her website. It was after this couple’s costume that Juszczyk would be seen on the sidelines wearing her new sportswear design because she was self-taught and the only mannequin she had was herself.
Starting points like these soon blossomed into her sportswear becoming more noticeable with more celebrities wearing her brands. This started with Juszczyk designing a jacket for Britney Mahomes — the wife of Kansas City Chiefs Quarterback Patrick Mahomes — and then another jacket for Olympic Gymnast Simone Biles to wear for a Green Bay Packers game. Yet, despite the fact that these opportunities to dress these two women are amazing, this wasn’t what brought her brand to the limelight. Instead, the jumpstart of her brand to complete mainstream and buzz belongs to when Juszczyk dressed Taylor Swift as Swift joined the audience of many of the Kansas City Chiefs games this past season.
Juszczyk’s puffer jacket made its way onto Taylor Swift for the Jan. 13 Chiefs’ game through a gamble. Kristin Juszczyk had been asked by Britney Mahomes again to make her another custom piece and with Mahomes having become close to Swift, Juszczyk took a chance on making Swift one for Mahomes to give her. It was noted by Juszczyk that she didn’t have Swift’s measurements nor any guarantee that the design would be worn. Thus, when the paparazzi got photos of Swift in it, it came as a shock to Juszczyk. The press even mistakenly attributed the jacket to Nike, according to The New York Times. The shock value of the never-before-seen puffer jacket combined with the impact of Taylor Swift and the fact that the sportswear world has turned the tunnel walk into something more prestigious is perhaps a perfect catalyst for Juszczyk to finally ink that deal with the NFL.
Like most corporations, the NFL has the copyright for all the visual media, specifically the logos that are produced by the football teams in the league. Due to Juszczyk using the logos of several teams, not including the 49ers, you might be right to think that the NFL would go after Juszczyk for misuse of their logos. However, due to the high volume of interest in her work that wasn’t what happened.
Instead, the NFL decided to give Juszczyk a licensing deal, which means that the NFL had given Juszczyk full permission to use their visual media in men’s and women’s clothes that she creates, per Sportico. This new deal resulted in the first official NFL piece being a vest to commemorate the recent Super Bowl. The vest also had all proceeds going to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, which resulted in the vest selling for $75,000.
This choice to have her first piece given back to an organization was done in honor of Juszczyk’s mother, who passed away when Juszczyk was 18, according to the National Breast Cancer Instagram announcing the auction for the vest. Using the opportunity of having a deal with the NFL to give back to female-founded organizations, such as the National Breast Cancer Foundation, plus having the broader goal to give fans more options of what to wear to games, signals how important Juszczyk is to the sports fashion world.
Juszczyk is a testament to the concept that sports and fashion are not separate after all but, rather, interlinked as a showcase of passion. For as much as sports players express themselves in their manner of play on the field, fashion is also how the fans can express their love for their team and their own individual selves. And these ideas of expression can reverse too because sports and fashion are built off the wonders of how to be human.
“Sports and fashion are built off the wonders of how to be human.”
Haley Morrill
With Juszczyk’s brand on the rise, there can be a certainty that the ideas of how fashion and sports are linked will become more widespread because the sidelines will be just as hyped up as the players on the next drive.