I’ll get it out there early: Aries and New Balance for AS Roma might just be the best football-fashion collaboration of all time. Hear me out.
From Palace x Juventus and PSG x Jordan, to Thom Browne x Barcelona and Off-White™ x AC Milan, every man and their dog has had a slice of the football-fashion collaboration pie over the past few years.
However, such is the nature of the beast, they’ve become a little dry of late. A tad oversaturated and samey, if you will. Well, hold that thought, because there’s a new player in town, and it’s taking AS Roma for a spin.
Roman-born Sofia Prantera is the founder of London-based label Aries, and together with AS Roma sponsor New Balance, she's designed a unique on and off pitch collection that elegantly encapsulates notes from each of the three's past and present: whether that's with a certain style or particular color.
“To collaborate with an institution like AS Roma is the realization of how sport, fashion, and culture have become intertwined,” explains Prantera.
“Being Roman I understand how important this club is to the millions of fans in this city and around the world, and I wanted to reflect that through designs that celebrated Rome and conveyed its unique expression of football and fashion provenance.”
Eagled-eyed readers will quite rightly have noticed that I — your writer — only nine days ago cited Drôle de Monsieur’s AS Monaco collaboration as the best one yet, a title it now shares with Aries x AS Roma.
The collaboration includes an official on-pitch kit which will be worn by the team in their Japanese tour when they play Yokohama F Marinos in Tokyo at the end of November.
In-keeping with the signature Giallorossi colourway, the kits feature a diagonal marbling streak of the yellow and red that have become emblematic of the club, as matching socks and pro-shorts complete the kits, whilst the goalkeeper jersey is a cosmic fusion of Aries’ infamous dyed colourways.
The collaboration also includes a pre-game element which features a jersey, all-black nylon training tracksuit, and a limited-edition silver and gold metallic jersey that portrays Rome’s most iconic figures including Lupa Capitolina, Lucius Verus and Julius Ceaser.
The pre-game jersey and training tracksuit will be worn by the AS Roma players on-pitch during their warm up at Stadio Olimpico this Sunday (November 6) when they face local rivals Lazio.
As far as football-fashion collaborations go, this is undoubtedly one of the best and, you know what, one I'd actually wear out. Which is more that can be said for most.
