Streetwear and crop tops elevate World Cup fashion to new levels. Eight hours earlier. Annabel Rackham, Culture Reporter. Getty Images/Adidas. Shirt launches are a highly anticipated highlight of every World Cup. This year’s campaigns by the two leading kit suppliers—Adidas and Nike—represent a significant shift from past tournaments, offering streetwear-inspired collections rather than the usual coordinated football shorts, socks, and boots. Drawing from football culture both on and off the field, these lines blend archival classics with streetwear essentials. Nike unveiled its World Cup home shirts via a cinematic short film featuring stars like Virgil van Dijk, William Saliba, and Cole Palmer styling their kits with cargo pants, jeans, and sneakers. Nike. Adidas took it a notch higher by unveiling their away kits in Los Angeles not long ago. Celebrities such as Kendall Jenner and Damson Idris observed models styling their kits with flared trousers, distressed denim, and micro-shorts. It’s a method of demonstrating to fans “how to incorporate the kits into their own lives,” according to Adidas football’s global manager, Sam Handy. He has “known for a while that the worlds of streetwear, music, fashion, and culture intersect in football as a universal shared passion worldwide. It took a few seasons for everyone to recognize it.” Adidas. Streetwear is embedded in the casuals subculture, which originated in the UK during the 1970s. Casuals abandoned full team colors in favor of a more everyday style.
