Designers Virgil Abloh, founder of Off-White, and Kim Jones, artistic director of Dior Homme, partnered with Nike to approach the beautiful game from two distinct perspectives — and the ensuing collections that released mid-June are a runaway hit. For Abloh, football is an opportunity to blend memories of his youth — playing hip-hop tracks on the way to high school soccer matches, for instance — with his interests in mixing lifestyle and sport branding. Jones, in contrast, uses football to explore fashion’s cerebral side. He’s taken the sport’s traditional garments — the shorts, jersey and pre-match jacket — and reworked them in new cuts that change how the proportions of the body appear. The pieces are inspired by London punk style of the ’70s and ’80s and stretch the imagination of what it means to B wear a uniform.