Welcome to the Scoop: a weekly email series in which we quiz fashion insiders on the stories of the week. This will be a way for the Vogue Business community to synthesize and reflect on the latest headlines and get a little inside scoop every Friday.
This week’s guest is the NFL’s first-ever fashion editor, Kyle Smith. Smith is the reason all these American football players are suddenly people you recognize — sitting front row at the shows and talking on podcasts about their ‘fits.
Over the past year, the stylist (who also created his role himself by simply identifying a gap in the market) has taken over tunnel walks and redefined them as moments of opportunity — for the players to express their personal style and for the league to make money. Abercrombie Fitch , Breitling, and Hugo Boss are just three of the brands the league has collaborated with in the last year.
As his first official NFL season draws to a close, I caught up with Smith to get the scoop on this year’s Super Bowl.
Hi Kyle, what’s the scoop?
The Super Bowl’s coming up, and as you already know, Abercrombie Fitch is the first official fashion partner of the NFL. What you didn’t know is that we’re holding a fashion show with Abercrombie Fitch on the eve of the Super Bowl.
If you look at Abercrombie Fitch’s history, it’s 134 years old. When I went to the brand’s headquarters to broker this deal, I saw a pair of trousers that had been worn by JFK there — I got goosebumps. So the show is inspired by their long, rich history, and then adding an NFL lens to it.
The event will be invite-only. I don’t want to give out too much, but it’s going to be star-studded as it’s right before our big celebrity flag football game. So every celebrity in town for the Super Bowl will be there. And so will I, wearing Abercrombie Fitch — all black.
I feel like the fashion show as a format, outside of fashion weeks, is gaining traction.
I think the idea of a fashion presentation is changing. What I love about fashion is that it touches so many parts of culture, and sometimes it’s almost silly to look at it in a vacuum, right? So it’s like, how does fashion touch sports? How does it touch film? How does fashion touch all these other parts of life? Having a fashion show at the Super Bowl is celebrating the fact that people can express their identity through their football fandom. And football means so much to so many. It’s a very exciting way to engage more and more people with fashion.
You only wear black, so I know you will love this question. We got word that Gen Z is turning its back on it: what are your thoughts?
This is such a loaded question for me. I didn’t know that until you sent me that article. Honestly, I think it’s just a trend, and it might be a reaction to the doom and gloom of it all. I have a 19-year-old sister. I read sentiment about how Gen Z feels, and I get it. It’s really hard out there. If you can bring joy to your life in any way possible, whether it’s by wearing brighter colors or adding a charm to your bag, do it. Bring yourself joy no matter what.
There’s that classic notion that people who work with clothes wear black so that they can focus on other people’s clothes. Is that why you wear black?
I do it for a few reasons, but yes, I do spend my days thinking about everybody else’s situation with fashion, including what my clients are wearing. So it’s good not to have to think about what I wear. With most of my outfits, I can go easily from day to night. If I get a last-minute invitation to an event, most of the outfits I have work. I travel a lot too, and black makes it easier to pack.
But I also think a lot about consumption, as someone who works in fashion. That way, I can avoid buying things I won’t end up wearing.
I feel fashion’s overconsumption issue is also somehow reflected in this seemingly endless cycle of creative director appointments. Do you think the creative reset will ever end?
I think as long as the end goal keeps being sales, no one who makes these decisions will ever be happy. But you have to give people a chance and time to grow. And the opportunity to be creative.
I find the responsibilities of a creative director confusing these days. You have to be humble but you also need to have celebrity friends and a big social following. How do you think the role of the creative director will change over time?
There’s that joke that everybody’s a creative director, right? I am not talking about the big fashion houses, but out in LA, every other person you meet and ask, ‘What do you do?’ They’re a creative director. It’s how you get into Raya. But what does that mean? Truly, what does it mean?
I think about Rick Owens saying that anyone can make sketches and collages, but that you need to learn how to make clothes. So I think you’re right, the role is going to change. And maybe it needs to be broken up a little bit. Creative director is a huge conglomerate of different tasks, and it puts a lot of pressure on the individual, as opposed to the team. Plus, these days, less talented people have taken that word and really run with it.
Who has the toughest job in fashion, in your opinion?
I don’t know if it’s the hardest, but I’ve recently realized the importance of a specific job — that of the buyer. They have to serve so many stakeholders, and the impact of their decision-making is huge.
I saw it specifically in the tunnel. There are these businesses, call them traveling boutiques. They buy a bunch of clothes from different brands and stores. They don’t have wholesale accounts, so they mark up a lot because they make shopping convenient. They will travel to wherever the teams are. Say there’s a team coming to LA. They’ll get a room in their hotel and set up a shop there. If you’re a traveling athlete, there are all these rules about leaving the hotel. Instead, they go to this hotel room and buy their tunnel outfits.
I was thinking: why do I keep seeing this particular piece or this particular brand in the tunnel? And I realized it’s because these few people, who are all in group chats with each other, are buying from the same brands or whatever. So it’s wild to see the tunnel shaped by these few people. That really opened my eyes to the broader job of being a buyer, whether it’s for a bricks-and-mortar department store, a boutique, or an e-tailer.
You’re in Paris for menswear. What are you feeling for your clients next NFL season?
What I respect about athletes is that they don’t care at all about trends. They might like one thing they saw at a show because it reminds them of a movie character, or they just like the color, and then they end up wearing it, and they start talking about it with their teammates in the locker room. Then the teammates get it. I’ve seen this happen. So when multiple players are wearing a specific style, that’s what s trending. So when it comes to our athletes, I can never make fashion predictions. Because they just do whatever they want.
You can catch up with last week’s Scoop with Nordstrom’s Jian DeLeon here.
.jpg)
