Tom Marchitelli labored as an accountant for a hedge fund for eight years earlier than organising a facet hustle that quickly turned his full-time enterprise.
Marchitelli began a customized menswear clothes enterprise known as Gentleman’s Playbook a decade in the past. Since then, he has accrued roughly 500 shoppers, nearly all of whom are skilled athletes within the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB, and on the PGA Tour.
When The Athletic spoke with Marchitelli, he was heading to an airport in Dallas after a gathering with a baseball participant.
In his position as private designer, stylist and tailor, Marchitelli handpicks total wardrobes for a clientele which incorporates Kansas Metropolis Chiefs tight finish Travis Kelce. Through the completely different pre-seasons throughout the US’ varied leagues, Marchitelli is never in a single metropolis for lengthy. In addition to engaged on a lookbook of outfits for particular occasions, nearly all of his work centres round personalising total collections of tunnel matches for the athletes he works with.
“Tunnel matches” is the phrase used to explain what sportsmen and ladies put on once they flip up at venues for video games (‘matches’ being brief for ‘outfits’).
Often, athletes arrive within the tunnel beneath the sector carrying their finest outfits, which is the place the identify derives from. Consider it as a pre-game runway, the place gamers throughout sports activities in North America showcase their personalities by means of what they put on.
Probably the most fashion-conscious athletes, comparable to Houston Texans’ Stefon Diggs or Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, will go massive, however others favor to maintain it easy.
Stefon Diggs arrives for an NFL recreation in January this yr (Perry Knotts/Getty Photos)
Kyle Kuzma was within the former camp, and is now the latter. The Washington Wizards ahead just lately introduced his ‘retirement’ from the tunnel stroll after taking the sport to heights with selections together with an extremely outsized pink Raf Simons jumper and a black Rick Owens puffer jacket.
“I don’t wish to be part of that sort of neighborhood the place it’s important to placed on a ’match. I’m actually taking a backseat to all of that,” Kuzma advised Vogue in October.
Whereas Kuzma has checked out and traded in a palate of excessive style for plain-tasting sweatsuits, in Europe, footballers are solely simply checking into the world of tunnel matches.
“It’s a sport inside sports activities (within the U.S.),” Marchitelli says. “Social media performs an enormous position, as a result of all main sports activities groups have media people who find themselves answerable for photographing the gamers as they enter.
“That’s solely been round, I’d say perhaps eight years, as a result of after I first began, that (posting photographs of gamers arriving to video games on social media) wasn’t a factor. After which it began turning into so seen.
Kyle Kuzma, pictured in 2022 (left) and 2021, has ‘retired’ from deliberate tunnel matches (Getty Photos)
“You’re getting an in depth and private take a look at what athletes seem like once they’re not of their uniforms (staff equipment), and the way they’re selecting to precise themselves. And, over time, gamers have taken extra pleasure in how they present up for work.
“One other massive issue that drives it’s competitors amongst gamers. These guys are attempting to outdress guys on their staff, guys on different groups throughout their sport, and even crossing over into different sports activities.
“After they present as much as the sector, they’re given the uniform that they’re pressured to put on, in order that they don’t have any actual selections of self-expression aside from their sneakers, cleats (boots), perhaps a wristband accent or a scarf. However the outfit that they put on to indicate as much as the sport, they’re in a position to categorical how they really feel and the way they wish to look.”
Marchitelli might discipline a staff in every males’s main sports activities league with the variety of shoppers he has, however not a single one is an expert footballer regardless of MLS and NWSL groups having each dabbled on this subcultural motion.
In European soccer, tunnel matches are virtually nonexistent. France worldwide Jules Kounde led the best way for Barcelona in latest seasons along with his ensembled appears which mix classic finds with excessive style. This season although, Barca gamers are now not been allowed to reach for video games in their very own garments. This has led Kounde, a face now as recognisable in style quarters as a lot as soccer, capturing his matches to share along with his followers on social media after matches as a substitute.
Most groups have a strict club-tracksuits-only coverage utilized to matchday and this is without doubt one of the principal explanation why pre-game tunnel matches haven’t but taken off in soccer.
So the place is the individuality? The reply to that doesn’t but reside within the underbelly of stadiums however within the automobile parks of the game’s coaching grounds. Heading into coaching on your membership or nationwide staff has slowly developed right into a time when gamers throughout the boys’s and ladies’s video games can showcase their type within the type of arrival matches.
Exhibiting up for worldwide obligation, particularly, has change into a second for gamers to show their style prowess.
Final month, Liverpool defender Ibrahima Konate arrived at France’s coaching floor carrying a neon inexperienced hood zipped over his face whereas his worldwide team-mate Marcus Thuram, usually bedecked in Balenciaga and Chrome Hearts, is amongst these additionally paving the best way.
Konate arrives for worldwide obligation with France in October (Franck Fife/AFP through Getty Photos)
Gamers of Argentina, Belgium and Portugal are three different standouts who constantly present up. In the meantime, England — whose gamers embrace Louis Vuitton model ambassador Jude Bellingham — are nonetheless strutting round in team-supplied Nike tracksuits, proving the pattern has not utterly caught hearth in every single place.
“It was in all probability 2022 when that (arrival matches) wave actually started,” Jordan Clarke, founding father of Footballer Matches, a platform which celebrates footballer style, says.
Clarke seen that Premier League staff Crystal Palace had began placing photos on Instagram of their gamers arriving at their south London coaching floor carrying their very own garments. After beginning a dialog with the membership, Footballer Matches and Palace have been collaborating on Instagram posts to showcase what gamers are carrying ever since.
“Now we’ve executed it with Chelsea, Nottingham Forest, Anderlecht in Belgium, we’ve executed it with Brentford quite a bit, we’ve executed it with Crystal Palace Girls, Chelsea Girls — there are such a lot of,” says Clarke, who hopes that arrival matches are a precursor to tunnel matches turning into an everyday sight in soccer.
“I don’t wish to go away anybody out, however we’ve executed it with so many golf equipment and now you’re seeing Liverpool, Newcastle United and Manchester Metropolis perhaps not doing it in collaboration with us, however they’re doing it (themselves) now, and that’s wonderful to see.
“With coaching, there’s a lot much less strain. They (golf equipment) can launch images midweek and no matter occurs on the weekend, until you’re a super-negative particular person, I don’t assume individuals are going to hyperlink again to what the gamers wore to coaching as the explanation why they misplaced.”
Siobhan Wilson is without doubt one of the gamers who has featured on Footballer Matches’ Instagram web page in collaboration together with her membership, Birmingham Metropolis Girls, and she or he would welcome an escape from the normal pre-match tracksuit.
“It truly annoys me, you already know — particularly whenever you see what they’re doing within the WNBA,” says the 30-year-old Jamaica worldwide with amusing. “I want we did stuff like that right here. They simply need us to all seem like clones of one another, but it surely’s positive.”
Wilson used to ship mail whereas taking part in part-time for Palace. She now combines a full-time taking part in profession at Birmingham, who’re high of the second-tier Championship, with being a health influencer to 1.3million followers on TikTok.
“It’s good for the followers to see gamers categorical themselves by means of what they’re carrying and their type,” she says. “You get to see individuals’s personalities by doing that, so it could be one thing that I’d like to see extra of.
“For me, I really feel like should you’ve obtained like a pleasant ’match on, and pair of sneakers on, you simply really feel good. However I get the opposite facet (gamers arriving in uniform tracksuits) too. It’s a staff recreation. You’re there to play as a staff, so I get it from that standpoint, however carrying your personal garments and feeling snug in what you’re carrying: it lets you be your self a bit extra.”
Martin Odegaard and Arsenal arriving in staff gear to play Chelsea this month (Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC through Getty Photos)
Algen Hamilton is a designer and stylist from south London.
His break within the style trade arrived when he began styling appears for footballer pal Reiss Nelson, the Fulham winger (on mortgage from Arsenal) who he met at major faculty aged 4. Hamilton’s consumer listing consists of Trevoh Chalobah (Crystal Palace, on mortgage from Chelsea), Kai Havertz (Arsenal), Joe Willock (Newcastle), Ben Chilwell (Chelsea) and Mateo Kovacic (Manchester Metropolis).
“I’ll work with them always all through the season, each time they wish to — once they have an occasion arising or they’ve an awards ceremony or they’re going to a premiere,” Hamilton, 24, explains. “On the subject of arrival matches, these appears usually come from the wardrobe I create and I’ll replace it a number of instances in a yr.
“I communicate to them first about what they wish to put on and what the vibe is that we’re going for, if it’s completely different to earlier than, the place they’re travelling to et cetera. Then I’ll go off, make the outfits and ship them a message. They may inform me which outfits they love.
“So, for instance, I’m working with Trevoh proper now. We made a complete bunch of outfits, which he picked, after which there are manufacturers who wish to reward some stuff for winter.”
Amadou Onana, left, checks in for Belgium obligation in 2023 (Nico Vereecken/Picture Information through Getty Photos)
Having labored with Chalobah on a full-time foundation since 2021, Hamilton has watched the development of soccer and style’s relationship firsthand.
“After I first began, gamers weren’t actually going on the market dressing up like they do now, and it wasn’t simply the Premier League — we’re speaking La Liga (its Spanish equal) and the Bundesliga (the highest division in Germany),” he says.
“Additionally, manufacturers weren’t actually opening up partnerships to soccer gamers both. As time has passed by, the recognition has grown and supporters are tapping into the participant outdoors of the coaching floor and off the pitch. I really feel like now, these alternatives are taking place extra. Gamers are extra open with their matches and wish to present them off.
“We’ve watched the sport change little by little and it is just a matter of time for it to get to that stage the place it’s just like the sports activities are in America. However let’s not combine a step ahead with progress, as a result of it may be a step ahead seeing groups do this (post-arrival matches on social media) but it surely doesn’t imply it’s precise development for the groups to vary their minds.
“The Premier League may be very conventional. They’ll in all probability be the final league that may change how issues are.
“It could be good for the progress to be significant; for it (carrying an arrival outfit) to not be checked out as a distraction or as a second the place gamers aren’t centered on what the staff targets are, however to see it as a chance the place gamers are expressing themselves.”
GO DEEPER
Footballers, modelling and the facility of expression
(High images: Getty Photos; design: Kelsea Peterson)
