Growing up, Kyle Smith did not like sport.
“I was afraid of the boys in sport,” said Mr. Smith, 31, who is gay. He described himself as the type of teenager who was much more interested in looking at ‘the September issue’, the documentary about the inner operation of Vogue.
Mr. Smith, who was born in Connecticut and raised in Los Angeles, thought last month about his teenage years about coffee in the SMEMred SMOMred in Paris in Paris. He was in the city to visit the men’s clothing shows for the first time since he was named very first fashion editor of the National Football League.
He started the job last fall with a guideline to use fashion and style to reach a new audience through the media platforms of the competition. Mr. Smith works together with athletes to make content and share photos or videos of those who present their off-duty style on events such as Heren fashion week and helps players and teams to build relationships with traditional fashion media brands such as GQ and Vogue.
On Super Bowl Lix on Sunday he will be part of a team that relates to what players and other remarkable attendees wear to the game during a new segment with a red carpet that is broadcast as part of Streamer Tubi’s Super Bowl broadcast. When he is not traveling, Mr. Smith, who still lives in Los Angeles, usually at the NFL’s West Coast Office next to Sofi Stadium in Inglewood, California.
Although the NBA, NHL, MLB and MLS have also drawn more attention to the style of athletes as the industries of fashion and sport have become more intertwined, those competitions should not underline that focus by creating a job with the word ‘ Fashion ‘in the title.
Ian Trombetta, the senior vice president of the NFL of Social, Influencer and Content Marketing, described the role of Mr. Smith as that of a consultant “for players and then the competition, in terms of how we appear at different times.”
Although his role of fashion editor is new to the NFL, Mr. Smith is not. He has worked for about six years in different capacities for the competition and the accompanying entities, including as a stylist for players who hired him.
He Styling Joe Burrow, the Quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals, who did not attend the men’s programs in Paris because he went to the Australian Open in Melbourne instead. Mr. Smith said he Mr. Burrow helped to choose clothes to take the tennis tournament and to Mr. Burrow in Ohio to travel with four suitcases full of options.
Crucial for Mr. Smith, who became the NFL’s Mode editor, was his involvement in getting Mr. Burrow and Justin Jefferson, a broad recipient of Minnesota Vikings, to participate in Vogue World, a fashion show about steroids, in Paris last summer, the Lord Trombetta explained.
“The moment of Paris was a way for us to calibrate what Kyle did and to formalize some things,” he said, referring to a growing desire for NFL players, whose teams sometimes set guidelines for clothing For off-field performances, to tell stories through clothes. “Some of them may have really big personalities, and some may be a bit on the shy side, and fashion is their way to express themselves.”
Mr. Smith had previously worked for more than two years as a social media programmer for the NFL, a job in which he helped broaden fashion -content posted on the @NFL- and @nflstyle Instagram accounts (he still keeps Always supervision of @nflstyle). He also cultivated relationships with classhorse -athletes: Mr. Smith remembered that he took a dozen Cleveland Browns players who, for example, shop on Rodeo Drive, while the team was in Los Angeles for a competition.
He got his first job at the competition in 2019: after an internship at the celebrity stylist Karla Welch and the brand Amiri became Mr. Smith hired as a wardrobe assistant for the NFL network. He remembered that he received a callback for the track as he drove with his father to a costco and joked about the irony of the situation, given the feelings of Mr Smith about Sport. “Wouldn’t that be that funny? “He remembered that he asked his father.
Mr. Smith said he applied for work, especially because it was a chance to pursue work as a stylist, but also because his internships had opened his mind to bring his interest in fashion in an industry that is not yet complete had to embrace. “Musicians and actors were covered, athletes needed the same thing,” he said.
At the NFL network, Mr. Smith the anchors to dress; When he came to the company, he said, the style of players and the clothes they wore for tunnel walks did not get much attention. “The anchors would say:” Here is the 10th best player in the competition, “said Mr. Smith.” They would talk about his statistics, and I would think: “Yes, but look at his outfit! Why don’t they have it About that fit?
He and a colleague -wardrobe assistant threw NFL -executives the idea of making an Instagram account in which the style of players was documented that was accepted. That account has now destroyed, but Mr. Smith said it received the attention of many players who would contact posting photos of their outfits.
Marquez Valdes-Scantling, a broad recipient for the New Orleans Saints who have been playing in the NFL since 2018, said that the possibilities to show the personal style were an appeal to athletes like him who are in teams with no fewer than 53 players And mostly in uniforms that include helmets over their faces.
“We are so interchangeable,” he said. “You get lost.”
This season the schedule of Mr. Valdes-scantling he was able to go with Mr. Smith to the Men’s Fashion Week in Paris to go it was his first time at the shows. Last year he founded Luxe Fashion Fest, an event in Tampa, Fla., Where Mr. Valdens-Scantling Lives, which focuses on emerging brands. (The second episode is planned for April.)
On a Friday at the end of January, he and Mr. Smith visited the showroom of the designer Colm Dillane, better known as Kidsuper, so that Mr. Valdens-scantling, 30, what clothes could try. While a shirtless Mr. Valdens-scantling are tattooed and tattooed arms in a navy pack jack with light pink stripes, the men wondered what to wear underneath.
“I just couldn’t wear a shirt,” said Mr. Valdes-scantling.
“No shirt is very athlete!” Mr Smith replied.
About 15 minutes later, Ogbo Okoronkwo, a defensive end for the Cleveland Browns, entered the showroom. Mr Okoronkwo, who had just been to Milan for the men’s clothing shows of the city, said he was starting to go in Europe in Europe about five years ago. Since then he added, his style was “shifted from streetwear to more tailor -made attacks.”
He was attracted to a blazer, but Mr. Smith wondered over the sleeves. “It’s very small,” he said. “Your arms would not fit.”
Mr. Smith had previously said that he thought Mr Okoronkwo was one of the best dressed players about what he considered the most fashionable team in the NFL
“You would think it is a New York or Los Angeles or perhaps Miami team is his iteland,” he said, the name Denzel Ward, Grant Delpit and Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, known for traditional Ghanaian ensembles, as if Below the Style-Forward players of the browns.
The day after Mr. Smith and the players had the appropriate in Kidsuper showroom, he met Mr. Valdes-Scantling and Mr. Okoronkwo for the nocturnal catwalk show of the designer in the Parc de la Villette, a vast park on the northeastern edge of Paris.
Mr. Smith, who wore Maison Margiela Tabi Boots, had to make his way through a crowd to come in. “Fashion is a sport!” he said.
After the show, Mr. Okoronkwo credited Mr Smith because he was ‘a bridge’ for the fashion world – a world that Mr. Okoronkwo said he once saw the same way when Mr. Smith had seen the sports world: not very hospitable.
“It was rather a problem if you were anything but grass, football and dirty,” said Mr. Okoronkwo. “But my love for fashion and photography only helps my game. It is finally normal for football players to like fashion. “
