If John Halls were playing a game of 'two truths and a lie', the 42-year-old north Londoner would be hard to decipher.
In 1991, as a young child, he appeared in the opening scene of Kylie Minogue's music video. The video for Word Is Out was filmed in the early hours of the morning at Camden Market and features a cameo appearance by British TV presenter Davina McCall as one of Minogue's backup dancers.
Ten years later, 19-year-old Halls made his debut for his boyhood club Arsenal in the third round of the Worthington Cup (now Carabao Cup) against Manchester United at Highbury.
The Islington-born midfielder, who also played at full-back, replaced the player who won the Champions League with Barcelona in 2006 and also started in the 2006 World Cup final, coming on in the second half of the 4-0 win. Participated midway through. 2010. Shortly after swapping places with former Netherlands international left-back Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Halls was shown a yellow card for blocking Phil Neville's cross with his arm. Twenty minutes later, he was booked again and sent off for kicking past winger Bojan Djordzic.
Eleven years later, his career ended just as abruptly.
Photo of John Halls playing for Arsenal in 2003 (Tony Marshall/EMPICS via Getty Images)
Halls, who left Arsenal in 2003 and went on to play for Stoke City, Brentford and Crystal Palace, was forced to retire at the age of 30 due to a series of injuries.
This premature end didn't really hit home for Hall.Until he was in his mid-30s and went through a period of depression. His low mood began a few days after his contract with Wycombe Wanderers expired, as he dealt with the loss of his footballing career after an incident that occurred during a trip to a London shopping center. I was late.
“I literally quit my job and got my last paycheck, and then I cried for about five days,” Halls said. “I was in the 1980sHopping Center and my current agent approached me and said, “Do you want to be a model?” I thought, “Okay, let's do it,” and that was it. The next day I went right away to a test shoot and the next day they signed me. ”
A few months later, Hall spent six weeks in New York, rapidly moving into the world of high fashion. It was around that time that he shot the cover of the men's fashion magazine Man of the World in 2013.
“Once it came out, that's what drove me, that's all. I didn't stop working,” he said. “It was crazy. It was a crazy couple of years. I was traveling everywhere, working everywhere. It really helped that I was able to ignore that I lost my football career. After that. The depression I felt over losing my career has eased a little.”
Since then, Holes has become a regular on Giorgio Armani's catwalks. He opened shows for Dolce & Gabbana, worked with Brunello Cucinelli, and saw his work at H&M illuminated by billboards in Times Square.
Hall feels “very lucky,” and for good reason. Switching his career from football to fashion, as he did more than a decade ago, wasn't a path well-trodden. David Beckham was one of those unusual outliers who operated effortlessly in both realms. These days, there are many soccer players who combine their soccer career with fashion or modeling work.
In September, Barcelona and France full-back Jules Kounde had his torso smeared with whipped cream while shooting a campaign for French fashion house Jacquemus. In the same month, Arsenal's England midfielder Declan Rice made his runway debut for menswear brand Labrum at the London Fashion Week show held at the Emirates Stadium.
Arsenal midfielder Declan Rice walks for Labrum at London Fashion Week in September (Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images)
Former Arsenal defender Hector Bellerin is widely known asThose who contributed to the arrival of this new era. You couldn't miss him in 2019 at Brig.He wore pink when he walked the Paris street runway for Louis Vuitton's SS20 collection.
Everton striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin is another pioneer. When she wore a handbag and flared shorts on the cover of the fashion magazine Arena Homme+ in 2021, it was a turning point. Celebrity British stylist Harry Lambert, who has worked with the likes of singer Harry Styles and actor Emma Corrin, was behind the unconventional look that has brought Calvert-Lewin much praise.
But with that praise came some predictable criticism. Calvert-Lewin's outfit naturally attracted the attention of many trolls, and with it came widespread criticism. Some of it was homophobic, in no small part because the Everton frontman's shorts were widely mistaken for skirts. Bellerin, Rice, and Kunde have all experienced similar reactions to their modeling work.
Some fans argue that players should “stick to football”. Some people don't want to understand or accept the importance of self-expression, off-field creativity, or challenging gender norms. But there is a whole community. do get it.
Jordan Clark is the founder of Footballer Fit, a platform he put together while working in the stockroom of British retailer Argos. Footballer Fits celebrates the fashion of footballers with a fun audience. Marcus Thuram (Inter Milan), Amadou Onana (Aston Villa), Alex Iwobi (Fulham) and Tim Weah (Juventus) were among the footballers styled, photographed and interviewed by Clarke and his team is part of.
“It's great that players (like Rice and Kounde) now feel like they can do these things, because not too long ago they were under the pressure of football, the pundits, the fans, “Maybe he was too intimidated by the club's mindset,” Clark said.
Hector Bellerin models for Louis Vuitton at Paris Men's Fashion Week 2019 (Estrop/Getty Images)
“Nowadays, we're less afraid of what people think. The stigma of masculinity and old-fashioned ideas like 'soccer is a man's sport' are being dispelled. That's why we're seeing male players painting their nails, wearing skirts, and doing things we wouldn't have seen years ago because of the state of the locker room. . Society is now much more open to this issue and viewed in a much more positive light. ”
Morgan Allan is Versus' Creative Director. Versus describes itself as “a platform that champions the future of soccer and its growing influence on new music and culture.” He has just directed Versus' recent shoot with Bayern Munich's Jamal Musiala, where the Germany international was styled by Italian label Bottega Veneta.
“Social media has given footballers agency over their profiles, meaning they are not only at the whim of the brand, but also at the whim of the football club,” Alan says.
“When you talk to footballers like Rafael Leao (AC Milan), Trevor Chalobah (Crystal Palace) and Jamal Musiala, they say: 'We train for several hours a day and drive to training in the car. Go, come back, and just play.’ For the rest of your life.
“They play once or twice a week and there’s a lot of other time. There’s only so much (EA Sports FC) Ultimate Team you can play before you pass out. For Charova, he said, fashion helps enhance the game because it distracts from the game. That way he can stop thinking about it, which is very difficult for elite athletes.”
Clark said photographers send images to Footballer Fits to show players' outfits because players can't post their own photos if they lose a game or don't play well. Shooting has also been delayed or canceled for the same reason.
“It's sad,” he says. “Football careers are short and no matter how well you earn during your career, there is no point in looking back and remembering the times you turned down opportunities because you cared about what someone said.
“Even if you're sitting at home doing nothing, whether it's your performance or not walking past fans and high-fiving them, they (detractors) will keep saying something. Paul Pogba We were talking about it recently. He told me to take it while I'm at the top because if something goes wrong in my career, I won't get any calls or opportunities.”
“Football players are human beings. No matter how much they cost or how much they get paid, they're not machines built to do one thing,” says Versus' Allan. “It's an exciting space and we have safe enclaves like we do on the internet. But when I did a shoot with Rafa Leo, for example, he saw me wearing Bottega and looking amazing. When I post, a lot of comments go like this: “What are you doing?'' Focus on soccer. That's what you're getting paid to do! That story still stands. ”
When Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford became Burberry's brand ambassador in 2020, the significance of the moment was not lost on Trisha Lewis. Trisha Lewis founded Romance FC, a creative football collective based in Hackney, East London, in 2012.
“Seeing the Burberry campaign with Marcus Rashford was something I was really proud of, both for myself and as a member of the black community,” Lewis said. “It's great to see a black player associated with such an iconic British brand, especially with all the accusations that have been going on and the constant disgust every time a black player does something wrong. It was a great victory.”
The fusion of football and fashion is more than just the merging of two cultures. Like Rashford and Barbary's work, it could mean even more. When former Lioness director Hope Powell was photographed alongside a number of women in British designer Martin Rose's second collaboration with Nike, released in 2022, their stories was shown in close-up.
“Martin Rose opened it up to a whole new audience,” Lewis explains. “People interested in subcultures and people in the creative industries knew the stories of these footballers. If they hadn't seen that campaign, they wouldn't have known that Hope Powell was England's first black manager. Maybe you didn't know.
“And now, instead of modeling football players in certain campaigns, more players are being spotlighted for their greatness. We want to meet real people, people we can relate to. And I want to see strength celebrated, especially in women's soccer. You don't have to be a size 6 or 6 feet 2 inches tall to be a model. What football players do in their space is enough to put them on that platform, because they are role models.”
For those who think fashion and soccer shouldn't mix, it's already too late. The two are inherently linked and existed long before it became a contractual requirement to use images of players to sell club kit and training gear.
“If you look back at the 1960s,[former Northern Ireland and Manchester United winger]George Best was very connected to the fashion world,” Lewis says.
“He had his own boutique store in Manchester, and no one frowned upon that. It was a very fashion-forward era, and those worlds were merging naturally.” If you think about Calvin Klein's campaign with Freddie Ljungberg (former Arsenal player), they literally stopped traffic along the side of the billboard, whether they knew who he was or not. It had a huge impact.
Former Manchester United player George Best pictured outside the Edwardia fashion boutique in Manchester in 1968 (Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
“What we're seeing in the fashion world right now is that a lot of designers and brands are being influenced by the world of football. So why not flip it the other way around? Even though it's becoming a trend, I feel like it's exploitative in a way (even if it's not), so why shouldn't soccer players be excluded from the field? do not have.”
Lewis hopes more female soccer players will continue to develop in the field, from grassroots to elite level, just like the current male soccer players. As for Halls, he encourages all his players to get involved in fashion, which he says saved his career. He also has some playful words of warning for the industry's new competitors.
“Football players are everywhere now. They are taking my job again, this is the problem,” he jokes. “It’s okay for them to do that, but don’t overdo it.”
(Top photo: Getty Images, Design: Eamonn Dalton)
