The rise of football's arrival ’fits, putting player fashion in the spotlight

Tom Marchitelli worked as an accountant for a hedge fund for eight years before setting up a side hustle that soon became his full-time business.

Marchitelli started a custom menswear clothing business called Gentlemans Playbook a decade ago.

Since then, he has accrued approximately 500 clients, the majority of whom are professional athletes in the NFL , NBA , NHL and MLB , and on the PGA Tour .

Advertisement When The Athletic spoke with Marchitelli, he was heading to an airport in Dallas after a meeting with a baseball player.

In his role as personal designer, stylist and tailor, Marchitelli handpicks entire wardrobes for a clientele which includes Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.

During pre-season across the United States various leagues, Marchitelli is rarely in one city for long.

As well as working on a lookbook of outfits for specific events, the majority of his work centres around personalising entire collections of tunnel fits for the athletes he works with.

Tunnel fits is the phrase used to describe what athletes wear when they turn up to games.

Usually, athletes arrive in the tunnel beneath the arena wearing their best outfits, which is where the name derives from.

Think of it as a pre-game runway where players across sports in North America showcase their personalities through what they wear.

The most fashion-conscious athletes, such as Houston Texans Stefon Diggs or Oklahoma City Thunders Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, will go big, while others will keep it simple.

Kyle Kuzma was the former and is now the latter.

The Washington Wizards forward recently announced his retirement from the tunnel walk after taking the game to heights which included an incredibly oversized pink Raf Simons jumper to a black Rick Owens puffer jacket.

I dont want to be a part of that type of community where you have to put on a fit.

Im really taking a backseat to all of that, Kuzma told Vogue in October.

While Kuzma has checked out and traded in a palate of high fashion for plain-tasting sweatsuits, in Europe, soccer players are only just checking into the world of tunnel fits.

It is a sport within sports (in the U.S.), Marchitelli says.

Social media plays a huge role because all major sports teams have media people who are in charge of photographing the players as they enter.

Thats only been around, I would say maybe eight years, because when I first started, that (posting images of players arriving to games on social media) wasnt a thing.

And then it started becoming so visible.

Youre getting a close and personal look at what athletes look like when theyre not in their uniforms, and how they are choosing to express themselves.

And, over time, players have taken more pride in how they show up for work.

Another big factor that drives it is competition among players.

These guys are trying to outdress guys on their team, guys on other teams across their sport, and even crossing over into other sports.

Advertisement When they show up to the arena, theyre given the uniform that theyre forced to wear, so they dont have any real choices of self-expression other than their shoes, cleats, maybe a wristband accessory or a headband.

But the outfit that they wear to show up to the game, theyre able to express how they feel and how they want to look.

Marchitelli could field a team in each mens major sport league with the number of clients he has, but not a single one is a professional soccer player despite MLS and NWSL teams having both dabbled in this subcultural movement.

In Europe, tunnel fits are almost nonexistent.

France international Jules Kounde led the way for Barcelona in recent seasons with his ensembled looks which blend vintage finds with high fashion.

This season, Barcelona players have no longer been allowed to arrive at games in their own clothes.

This has led Kounde, a face now as recognisable in fashion quarters as much as football, capturing his fits to share with his followers on social media after matches instead.

Most teams do have a strict club tracksuits-only policy applied to game day and this is one of the main reasons why pre-game tunnel fits have not yet taken off.

So where is the individuality? The answer to that does not yet reside in the underbelly of stadiums but in the car parks of training grounds.

Heading into training for your club or country has slowly evolved into a time when players across the mens and womens game can showcase their style in the form of arrival fits.

Arriving for international duty, in particular, has become a moment for players to demonstrate their fashion prowess.

Last month, Liverpool defender Ibrahima Konate arrived at Frances training ground wearing a neon green hood zipped over his face while his team-mate Marcus Thuram , often bedecked in Balenciaga and Chrome Hearts, is among those also paving the way.

Players of Argentina, Belgium and Portugal are three other standouts who consistently show up.

Meanwhile, England who boast players like Louis Vuitton brand ambassador Jude Bellingham are still strutting around in Nike tracksuits, proving the trend has not completely caught fire everywhere.

It was probably 2022 when that (arrival fits) wave really began, Jordan Clarke, founder of Footballer Fits, a platform which celebrates footballer fashion, says.

Advertisement Clarke noticed that Premier League team Crystal Palace had started putting pictures on Instagram of their players arriving at their south London training ground wearing their own clothes.

After starting a conversation with the club, Footballer Fits and Palace have been collaborating on Instagram posts to showcase what players are wearing ever since.

Now weve done it with Chelsea , Nottingham Forest , Anderlecht in Belgium, weve done it with Brentford a lot, weve done it with Crystal Palace Women, Chelsea Women there are so many, says Clarke, who hopes that arrival fits are a precursor to tunnel fits becoming a regular sight in football.

I dont want to leave anyone out but weve done it with so many clubs and now youre seeing Liverpool, Newcastle United and Manchester City maybe not doing it in collaboration with us, but theyre doing it (themselves) now, and thats amazing to see.

With training, there is a lot less pressure.

They (clubs) can release photos midweek and whatever happens on the weekend, unless youre a super negative person, I dont think people are going to link back to what the players wore to training as the reason why they lost.

Siobhan Wilson is one of the players who has featured on Footballer Fits Instagram page in collaboration with her club Birmingham City Women and she would welcome an escape from the traditional pre-match tracksuit.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Birmingham City Women (@bcfcwomen) It actually annoys me, you know especially when you see what they are doing in the WNBA , says the 30-year-old Jamaica international with a laugh.

I wish we did stuff like that here.

They just want us to all look like clones of each other, but its fine.

Wilson used to deliver mail while playing part-time for Palace.

She now combines a full-time playing career at Birmingham, who are top of the Championship, with being a fitness influencer to 1.3million followers on TikTok.

Advertisement Its nice for the fans to see players express themselves through what theyre wearing and their style, she says.

You get to see peoples personalities by doing that, so it would be something that I would love to see more of.

For me, I feel like if youve got like a nice fit on and a good pair of shoes on, you just feel good.

But I get the other side (players arriving in uniform tracksuits) too.

At the end of the day, it is a team game.

Youre there to play as a team, so I get it from that standpoint but wearing your own clothes and feeling comfortable in what youre wearing: it allows you to be yourself a bit more.

Algen Hamilton is a designer and stylist from south London.

His break in the fashion industry arrived when he started styling looks for footballer friend Reiss Nelson , the Fulham winger (on loan from Arsenal ) who he met at primary school aged four.

Hamiltons client list includes Trevoh Chalobah (Crystal Palace), Kai Havertz (Arsenal), Joe Willock (Newcastle), Ben Chilwell (Chelsea) and Mateo Kovacic (Manchester City).

Ill work with them constantly throughout the season whenever they want to when they have an event coming up or they have an awards ceremony or theyre going to a premiere, Hamilton, 24, explains.

When it comes to arrival fits, those looks normally come from the wardrobe I create and Ill update it multiple times in a year.

I speak to them first about what they want to wear and what the vibe is that we are going for, if its different to before, where they are travelling to etcetera.

Then Ill go off, make the outfits and send them a message.

They will tell me which outfits they love.

So, for example, Im working with Trevoh right now.

We made a whole bunch of outfits, which he picked, and then there are brands who want to gift some stuff for winter.

Having worked with Chalobah on a full-time basis since 2021, Hamilton has watched the progression of football and fashions relationship firsthand.

When I first started, players werent really going out there dressing up like they do now, and it wasnt just the Premier League we are talking La Liga and the Bundesliga , he says.

Advertisement Also, brands werent really opening up partnerships to football players either.

As time has gone by, the popularity has grown and supporters are tapping into the player outside of the training ground and off the pitch.

I feel like now, those opportunities are happening more.

Players are more open with their fits and want to show them off.

We have watched the game change bit by bit and it is only a matter of time for it to get to that stage where its like the sports are in America.

But lets not mix a step forward with progress because it can be a step forward seeing teams do that (post-arrival fits on social media) but it doesnt mean its actual progression for the teams to change their minds.

The Premier League is very traditional.

Theyll probably be the last league that will change how things are.

It would be nice for the progress to be meaningful; for it (wearing an arrival outfit) not to be looked at as a distraction or as a moment where players arent focused on what the team objectives are, but to see it as an opportunity where players are expressing themselves.

GO DEEPER Footballers, modelling and the power of expression (Top photos: Getty Images; design: Kelsea Peterson).

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