For sports brands, nostalgia is a trap

"Nostalgia - its delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek nostalgia literally means “the pain from an old wound" Don Draper in a Mad Men episode looks like he was trying to interpret the most ubiquitous trend in football in recent months and perhaps years. Now that fashion has already plundered the archives, sportswear has also locked itself in the claustrophobia of the past and the big brands are duelling to see who has the retro version that most closely resembles the original. So the adidas Predator from the mid-1990s returns to the pitch, then the Nike Total90 from 2004, now the Teamgeist from 2006 and again the PUMA King or the Umbro Tocco. All brands have chosen the easy path that leads to the corporate basement instead of thinking of a way forward. And if even Nike, the brand most able of shaping the future and creating new universes to explore together with its top athletes, has decided to retrace its steps so as perhaps not to commit the wrong ones of recent years, then nostalgic saturation has reached a point of no return.

In Europe and beyond, football has always represented the values of identity, tradition and history on which much of its appeal is based. It is no coincidence that fashion is so eager to draw on football aesthetics to reclaim a slice of heritage and credibility. Instead, fashion and lifestyle fatigue has eventually infected the entire competitive sports industry, or rather has caused it to move further and further away from the interests of the typical consumer. Fear of the future has blocked the desire for the new, trapped in the idealised past of those who have often not even lived it. As a result, the excitement that made sportswear a constant race against the imagination has quickly disappeared into the dust of the historical archives.

But this is not just a question of the spirit of the times. Today, it's obvious that nostalgia has become the only real driver of fashion and sportswear sales, responding to a consumer who no longer wants to live in the present. Whether you take yourself back to your youth by reflecting in a pair of shiny Total90s that your desk mate may have always envied, or escape to another era by heading to an atelier or market, nothing gives you hope and relaxation like buying a piece of history. It's easier to buy something that has already become a classic, that has already been recognised as relevant and representative. You skip the whole phase of creating a trend, an identity, a belonging by borrowing something that has already been used and historicised. If, on the other hand, fashion favours museums over art galleries, it is because it no longer has the courage to imagine a new order of ideas, a new creative wave.

This resignation is also part of the strategies of sports brands, which have chosen the easiest path in a difficult time, but which could also be the shortest. Even if the reintroduction of an iconic shoe that capitalises on the still visible aura of the legends of yesteryear works for the moment - with an enthusiasm coefficient that varies depending on the model and the player - it is a mechanism that exploits the potential of a brand. When even the umpteenth Gaussian curve of retro releases ends, what's left to relaunch to deflate in search of the next hit?

And this problem is not limited to football boots, which have once again become the flagship of every brand in the last year, but also to the various anniversary jerseys, which have become the pretext for launching a new, very classic lifestyle collection that appeals to the more traditionalist part of the fan base. Giving people what they want is perhaps the simplest and most straightforward marketing strategy there is: a thin rubber band between the supply and demand. But that rubber band can very easily be snapped if the relationship becomes so one-sided that brands no longer dictate consumer tastes and expectations, but just passively go along with them.

Sportswear brands have created their own legend by imagining a different future through their products and the athletes who wore them. They create the need to be part of that future and to want to be part of it by imitating the champions and their skills by buying their signature shoes or jerseys. But also by constantly investing in research, innovation and design, shaping the desires of those who did not yet know what to dream of, creating the icons that are now resurrected in all variations to keep the brands' monthly revenues alive. Sports without imagination and ambition is just cardio, sportswear without innovation is just merch. We need to return to this creative and pioneering spirit that doesn't just depend on immediate results or social algorithms, but that have the courage to picture an alternative future before all this nostalgia permanently robs us of the desire to grow and take risks.