Just like Juma, from “Pantanal”, the new shirt of the soccer team has a side, shall we say, wild. With a leopard print, the piece became a topic on social media this week, when it was released by the CBF, the Brazilian Sports Confederation, as the national uniform of the 2022 World Cup.
Available in yellow and blue models, the shirt was compared to scenes from the soap opera in which jaguar rosettes are highlighted and Alanis Guillen plays the role of a young woman who transforms into the animal. But it’s not just because of the similarity with “Pantanal” that the outfit went viral.
Football apparel rarely focuses on prints with figures or flashy details. If you want to describe a traditional football kit, for example, just talk about the colors and symbol of the team in question. Okay, here’s the basis for any outfit in this sport.
Contrary to this habit, however, the new shirt of the Brazilian team bets on an aesthetic known as “animal print”, in which the skins of animals such as jaguars, tigers, leopards, zebras and snakes serve as inspirations for looks, accessories and decorative objects.
The leopard print, which will now be on the field at the games in Brazil, has a reputation for dividing opinions — there are many who call it tacky, for example — and conveys multiple messages, depending on the context in which it appears.
It was in the 1930s that she gained space in the textile industry, with the success of “Tarzan”. Then, in the 1950s, it acquired a sexual facet, with the popularization of the pin-up figure. And in the 1970s it became a symbol of rebellion, being incorporated by the punk movement. But the aesthetics of animal print itself predates all of that.
“[Detalhes corporais de animais] were the first print of humanity”, explains the designer specialist in prints Rosana Rodrigues. “In the beginning, humans used animal skins [como roupas] to protect yourself from the cold. Then, since antiquity, bird plumage and other skins were linked to the idea of ​​power and strength.”
According to the CBF, the jaguar’s rosette on the national shirt is a tribute to the “courage and culture of a people who never give up”. When the institution released the outfit, it said it was inspired “by the claw and beauty” of the animal, which is the third largest feline in the world and can be seen in almost all Brazilian biomes.
For Rodrigues, the presence of the animal print on the uniform is related to concepts such as agility and strength, which are hallmarks of the jaguar – and also skills dear to the team, which will now try, again, the long-awaited hexa, after a World Cup. marked by the famous seven to one against Germany, in 2014, and another frustrated Cup, without great emotions, in 2018.
In addition, Rodrigues emphasizes that the new collection does not go unnoticed, which, of course, is great for Nike, supplier of the team’s sports equipment. The brand is selling the shirt for almost R$350 and the sweatshirt, also with ounce brands, for almost R$500.
In a logic à la “speak well or speak ill, but talk about me” — a verse of one of Melody’s biggest hits —, Nike follows in the footsteps of brands such as Balenciaga, which launched the controversial Paris Sneakers, already knowing how flashy they would be.
The designer ventures a hypothesis to try to explain why football does not invest in ultra-patterned uniforms – that the black and white TV of the time when the matches were broadcast would limit the perception of these details.
With the arrival of color television, she explains, there was a change in the way palettes appeared in football collections. But in the face of gender stereotypes and the high visibility given to men’s teams, discretion was maintained.
“We know that men’s football is much more prominent than women’s. And for cultural reasons, the women’s wardrobe has more possibilities for variations”, says Marcia Aguiar, a fashion professor at FAAP and a specialist in prints.
Aguiar also says that the leopard print is, in a way, linked to an eroticized and feminine image and, therefore, many men choose not to wear it. ​With the sale of the t-shirts, however, the specialist believes that there is a gap to question this sexist logic.
“I really like the new shirt. It refers to the Brazilian fauna in a non-cliché way. And, of course, with determination.”
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