The Fashion of Football, by Paolo Hewitt and mark Baxter, is a groundbreaking work that examines for the first time the link between football and fashion. Voted one of the 50 best football books by Four Four Two magainzine, it features a selection of rare photographs which enliven the text, the book divides itself into a work of two halves – the first depicting how fashion has influenced the players and the second showing how it has been represented in the stands. We begin in 1962, when restrictions limiting earnings from professional football were lifted and footballers started to splash out on looking good. First we visit George Best’s boutique in Manchester, try on the Terry Venables wig and reveal how the 1970s Chelsea team used flamboyant King’s Road boutiques to gain the upper hand in psychological battles with fierce rivals Leeds. We then move on to the ’80s to consider the influence British black footballers brought to bear on fashion, leaving room to mention the hairdressers and the mullet. Into the ’90s and, well, we’re confronted with Liverpool FC in white suits and David Beckham in a skirt…Back in the stands for the second half, The Fashion of Football describes how football fashion has been influenced by the world around it – from the ’60s working-class Mod look to ski.
Paolo Hewitt is also author of The Sharper Word: A Mod Anthology, The Soul Stylists, Alan McGee and the Story of Creation Records and The Looked After Kid. Mark Baxter is a former shop and club owner with a love of ’60s clothing and Millwall Football Club.
‘Hewitt and Baxter go in for a mix-and-match style…to create a colourful, colloquial history of British football fashions’ The Independent on Sunday