South African designer Thebe Magugu has teamed up with sportswear giant Adidas to design the football kit for the Orlando Pirates, a men’s South African team, in the upcoming 2023-2024 season.
This tie-up marks Magugu’s latest collaboration with Adidas, with whom the designer teamed up last year, co-designing a tennis collection that emphasised unisex and inclusive sizing. Since winning the LVMH Prize 2019, Magugu has collaborated with a number of big labels, including Dior, which tapped him to reinterpret the maison’s “New Look” in October 2022.
The Orlando Pirates sports kits will feature two on-pitch uniforms with the team’s signature skull and bones motif: a traditional black-and-white jersey for home games and pistachio green for away games. Magugu has also designed a line of fan apparel, including jerseys, T-shirts and sweatpants featuring his take on the logo, which will be available to purchase next week.
“I felt like it was important to hear the Orlando Pirates story before I began designing,” said Magugu. “A tale of perseverance, fighting against the odds to become one of the most recognised figureheads in global sports.”
A long-time supporter of the football team, Magugu said he was inspired by its legacy as a club founded by the children of migrant workers who worked in Johannesburg’s gold mines in the 1930s. Today, Orlando Pirates is one of the country’s oldest football clubs and has made 11 appearances in the CAF Champions League since FIFA lifted the ban on South African soccer teams due to the Apartheid regime in 1993.
Magugu is hardly the only luxury designer working with sports teams. Ahead of the FIFA World Cup in late 2022, Louis Vuitton released a campaign starring Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. Dior, Zegna and Fendi have designed collections for football clubs as well.
For Magugu, working with Orlando Pirates will give him more exposure to his target consumer: everyday South Africans. Earlier this year, Magugu told BoF that he is stepping back from the global stage and is hoping to grow his business without neglecting his local consumer.
“It is quite ironic but the brand is slowly becoming a household name in the West, but through this partnership, many South Africans will be hearing about the brand for the first time,” said Magugu. This was evidenced by ardent fans who took to Twitter to inquire about the Thebe Magugu emblem which is adorned on the back of the T-shirts.
The partnership will also allow Magugu to dip his toe into menswear, a category he plans to add to his portfolio in coming years. The designer said he is hopeful this partnership will lead him to the opportunity to design a collection for a local women’s soccer team. Eventually, he has his eyes set on the women’s national soccer team which is competing in the FIFA Women’s World Cup this month.
“Sport, like fashion, is an incredible unifier of people” said Magugu. “It is, however, an entirely different beast. The reach and visibility of soccer is too enticing to pass up, even for luxury designers.”
