Nouveau Nova's crochet-style football shirts

The trend of summer 2021 is also contaminating the football jersey sector. Thanks to Nova Marie Nørgaard, founder of Nouveau Nova, crochet is not limited to the catwalks of the big brands but is becoming an upcycling technique that gives new life to football shirts too. This is the mission of the Parisian brand, which makes "used sports items that have been given a new lease of life through crochet", as the bio on her Instagram profile states - with the clarification that the items are "unisex and genderless, like fashion". One of the designer's most popular items is the long-sleeved jersey, which is given new life thanks to the inclusion of a crocheted part. A wide variety of football shirts are used: from Ronaldo's Nerazzurri number 9 to Sheva's Rossoneri number 7, from Ronaldinho's Carioca number 10 to Francesco Totti's blue number 10, including the iconic models of Ajax, Arsenal, Barça, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Juventus and Olympique Marseille.

Not only top clubs, indeed. The best crocheted works are from smaller clubs: Palermo, Basel, Southampton, Fiorentina, Toulouse, Copenhagen, Coventry City, and even a cult version of the Thai national team jersey. But Nouveau Nova's transformations are not just limited to long sleeves. In some cases, such as the yellow version of the Gunners and Inter's centenary home shirt, the jerseys are transformed into clothes that follow the colours of the jersey.

This is the first time that crochet has been applied to football, but not the first time that this trend has been applied to sport. One of the main reasons is Tom Daley, the British diver who won gold in the 10m synchro in Tokyo 2020 and is the current world champion in the 10m platform and 10m synchro. Daley was one of the symbols of the last Olympic Games, especially for the way he handled the pressure between dives. During the pandemic, he took up knitting and carried this hobby - which later became a stress reliever for mental health - into his fourth Olympic adventure. From the jumpers created by the Briton to Nova Marie Nørgaard's football jerseys, with sport once again combining with fashion.

Crochet seems to be experiencing a new boom after the golden age of the 1970s. The handmade trend for summer 2021 combines two significant components of the new fashion trends: sustainability and the consequent reuse of garments through the process of upcycling. In addition to haute couture, however, crochet also follows another big trend that is making a comeback, namely DIY (Do It Yourself). Nova Marie Nørgaard fits in between these three components of the fashion ecosystem to bring together worlds - sport and fashion - that are communicating more and more. 

There are many brands - both established and those on the launching pad to become so - that have been riding these waves over the last year: from Marco Rambaldi to LC23, from Etro to N21, passing through Jil Sanders, Valentino and those who have produced only crochet accessories such as Marni, Fendi and Missoni. Already present on the catwalk in 2019 - when fashion began to seriously approach the creation of eco-friendly garments - the crochet style has reintroduced to all levels of fashion a bohemian aesthetic that was gradually disappearing from the big stages.