For the past few months, football jerseys have been everywhere in the city, on men and women, young and old, devoted fans and non-fans who know nothing about the right-back of the team whose colors they sport.
Once confined to the field and the stands, the football jersey seems to have become an ordinary piece of clothing. Worse still, given the unlikely combinations we sometimes encounter (the memory of a young girl who paired a Real Madrid jersey with denim shorts and cowboy boots haunts me), it's become a fashion piece in its own right.
What can we make of all this? First, the transition of sportswear from the field to the city is an absolute classic. Second, this is far from a spontaneous trend, as football clubs have strived to move their merchandise from sports to lifestyle sections, releasing new items like fashion houses roll out their collections.
In this story, the jersey itself is the main focus. What are we talking about? A flashy and gaudy garment that sculpts trained bodies but squeezes others. A piece of fast fashion made from cheap synthetic materials that promote sweating. A textile canvas for airline logos or sausage merchants. A banner, numbered and emblazoned on the back, not always tastefully (the memory of a young man wearing a Paris Saint-Germain jersey emblazoned with the word "Covid" and the number "19" also haunts me, though less violently).
In these conditions, and despite all the gentrification efforts undertaken by clubs, no football jersey can be beautiful or elegant. In reality, and to varying degrees, they are all ugly because their symbolic value far outweighs their aesthetic value. A tribal garment, valuable only for the sense of belonging or rejection it generates, as well as the good or bad memories it brings to the surface, the football jersey is not actually made to be worn. It is there to be loathed or hated, adored or scorned. Which is obviously far more important.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.