How Jules Koundé Became Football's Fashion King
Tunnel walk flair, a unique relationship with Adidas and co-signs from Jacquemus and Samuel Ross have helped the Frenchman become soccer's most stylish player.
Hi friends! Welcome back to SportsVerse, my twice-weekly newsletter which tells stories you can't find anywhere else, at the intersection of sports, fashion, business and culture.
Let’s get straight into it. Football (soccer) and fashion have always had a weird relationship.
But today, we are witnessing the golden age of sports-fashion crossovers. And there’s no one in the beautiful game navigating the weird and wonderful codes of the fashion industry like Jules Koundé right now.
In this edition of SportsVerse—the first of a two part series exploring the relationship between fashion and the beautiful game—we’re examining how Koundé’s tunnel walk tactics, a special relationship with Adidas and crucial co-signs from fashion industry hitmakers Simon Porte Jacqeumus and Samuel Ross have turbocharged his ascent into football-fashion stardom.
But first, here are three things I’m watching in sports culture this week.
Your boy was on the FootballCo Business Podcast this week. It’s not just any show. Previous guests include AC Milan’s CMO and Google’s director of global sports. We spoke about fashion’s influence on football (topical), whether teams need in-house creative directors and the Arnault family’s recent moves in the sport. We also spoke about Cole Palmer, of course.
Nike’s athlete marketing is making noise again. It had some of its most exciting athletes—A’ja Wilson, Sabrina Ionescu and Midge Purce, to name just a few—doing the rounds at Paris Fashion Week, with some crazy looks put together by stylists like Brittany Hampton and Courtney Mays.
Tech-sports-culture guru
has revived her newsletter and laid out some bold predictions for the year ahead in Formula 1.
Also, please don’t forget to refer your friends to SportsVerse for insights and good times they can’t get anywhere else.
How Koundé Became High Fashion
There are many different ways footballers engage with fashion. (And there’s no judgement here!) There are those who simply have lots of money and want to wear the highest number of luxury brand logos per cm of their body at every given moment—a dying species, but one I expect will linger for years to come.
And then there is the new generation of players who increasingly understand the value of making meaningful connections in the fashion industry. Players like former USMNT captain Danny Williams and Héctor Bellerín were among the first to truly grasp this. Bellerín, a former Arsenal player, received a lot of online abuse for seeking out daring looks from emerging designers, and for walking in a Louis Vuitton show for Virgil Abloh in 2019, long before that was a thing.
I’ve known for a long time that Koundé is also of this ilk. The tunnel walk still isn’t really a thing in European sports as it is in North America. But since joining Barcelona in 2022, Koundé has used his pre-game arrival fits to align himself with the fashion world.
Night in, night out he treated us to fits that wouldn’t look out of place on a Paris Fashion Week Men’s runway, blending outfits from emerging designers with cult favourites like Aimé Leon Dore, and even repping the Sakura-themed jersey of the Japanese national team. We’ve had suit-and-tie looks, we’ve had heeled boots, we’ve had skorts and sleeveless knitted vests, we’ve had the whole lot. And we love it.
It helps that he’s an Adidas athlete. There are few sportswear brands doing it better right now when it comes to introducing their partner teams or athletes to crossovers in the fashion industry (see Labrum x Adidas x Arsenal; Willy Chavarria x Noah Lyles x Adidas; Stella McCartney x Adidas x Arsenal Women). The brand commissioned talented designer Sophie Hird to create a custom Champions League-themed leather jacket and duffel bag which Koundé duly repped in the tunnel before one game-night last season. Adidas has also put his natural love of modelling to good effect, casting him in campaigns for its Samba sneaker among others.
It also helps that Koundé is a French international. The national team’s player arrivals at Clairefontaine, their prestigious training base, have long been a fashion runway. It’s one that Koundé excels on. I wrote an article about the “Clairefontaine Catwalk” for The Face magazine back when I was a baby reporter ahead of the Euros in 2021.
Infiltrating the Industry
Any footballer can show people they’re interested in fashion. All you need to do is hire a stylist. That’s not the hard part. What many crave—and only a few have truly achieved—is full-on acceptance from the fashion industry, which has until very recently kept athletes at arm’s length. That includes things like fashion week invites or being courted by the most exclusive brands for appearances at shows or VIP events—these things can be far more elusive for most footballers than you might think.
Confirmation of Koundé’s ascent to fashion stardom came late in 2024 when he was revealed as the latest muse of perennial fashion it-boy Simon Porte Jacquemus, and starred in a campaign for the French designer’s eponymous label.
Then, as Paris Fashion Week wrapped up a few days ago, it emerged that Koundé was cast in the debut campaign for Samuel’s Ross’ new joint venture SR_A Engineered by Zara. Being handpicked by Ross, the former Virgil Abloh protégé and A-Cold-Wall designer, was the ultimate co-sign from one of menswear’s most influential tastemakers.
Better yet, the campaign was shot by Gabriel Moses, fashion’s most in demand photographer who has lent his moody visual aesthetic to other sports-fashion masterpiece crossovers in the past year, including the Adidas Y-3 x Real Madrid campaign starring Jude Bellingham and Zinedine Zidane.
None of this has been handed to him. Jules has put the work in, making the right connections with insiders. Store owners have told me he’s also been known to randomly show up at their niche luxury boutiques in Paris or London from time to time, looking to buy new brands for his next big look. Koundé even had to get creative—switching to post-game tunnel fits last year after head coach Hansi Flick mandated a dress code which ordered all players to arrive for games in FC Barcelona gear.
Mr. Koundé is football’s fashion MVP right now. And no one can tell me otherwise.
That’s all for today, friends. Thanks for coming along for the ride. Keep your eyes peeled for part two.
Until next time!
DYM
Thank you for the shout-out DYM - signed TCB :)
Also thanks for another banger newsletter issue
I think brands are overlooking players like Joe Willock and Reiss Nelson. While they may not be as flamboyant as Koundé, they’ve been tapped into the fashion scene for quite some time.