Ronaldinho has conquered Paris Fashion Week

After designing Barnsley kits and a varsity jacket for Jack Grealish, Colm Dillane, designer and founder of KidSuper, surprised the Paris Fashion Week audience last weekend at his show entitled 'String Theory'. In the days leading up to the fashion show, some online photos had anticipated the possibility that Dillane would include garments and looks dedicated to the world of football, in particular Ronaldinho. Not only were the anticipations confirmed and two Dinho-inspired shirts were seen on the catwalk, but it was the Brazilian footballer himself who walked the runway, creating the real wow moment in the show, as often happened when the R10 catwalks were the Camp Nou or Parc des Princes.

Colm Dillane has never hidden his great passion for football, in the past he played in the 7vs7 TST tournament, and other of his collections have been inspired by the sporting aesthetic. But why did the New York creative director choose Ronaldinho for this collection? In an issue of 'Portrait' published by nss magazine, Dillane described his working method and the aspects on which his artistic research focused. From the words, it emerged how the KidSuper designer loved to be a hard worker, and that this was his way of creating constant reasons for amazement. The desire to produce new creations resembles the concept of Joga Bonito that accompanied Dinho throughout his career. On the pitch, the Brazilian's interest was always to produce as much play and magic as possible, every touch was a performance and goals were accompanied by dances. Dillane loves the vibrancy, colour and rhythms of Fashion Week as much as Ronaldinho loved to spectacularise the game of football, the same spectacle the designer was referring to when he told nss magazine: 'I want to stage a real play'.

Although fashion seems to be more and more marketing, campaigns and garments made beyond all demands, there still resides in it a strong idea of an entertainment product, which expresses itself precisely at Fashion Weeks. For a designer like Dillane, who is sensitive to preserving the purity of fashion, it is, therefore, no coincidence that he chose Ronaldinho, perhaps the last memory of an acrobatic, carefree football, painted in colorful, irregular spots. Ronaldinho was pure entertainment and, like the great brands, he had distinctive elements that made it easy to recognise what he was talking about the smile, the headband, the Nike Tiempo. 

Fashion Weeks are often a time when there are no half measures: either great rejection or great appreciation. Ronaldinho in this sense belongs to that narrow circle of 'no hater' footballers, no one really hates Dinho and bringing him on the catwalk if not a strategic choice was certainly a way for KidSuper to find a moment to get everyone on the same page, like when the Real Madrid fans in his Barcelona days stood up and applauded the Brazilian even though he had just scored a brace against the Blancos. Brands constantly need approval and Dinho was the key to creating levity in an event and system that historically has always taken itself very seriously. 

For some time now it has been normal to see footballers in the front rows of shows and in some cases even as models on the catwalk. It happened recently with Garnacho and Camavinga at Balenciaga and in the past with Guardiola modelling for Antonio Mirò. Almost unheard of, however, is the choice of a designer to dedicate a collection to a footballer, because what KidSuper did was not bring Ronaldinho football shirts to the catwalk, but design items entirely dedicated to the aesthetics of the 2005 Ballon d'Or winner. The great strength of this collaboration was then to have brought the real Dinho to the catwalk and not to have used him only as a model, as in the examples mentioned before.

On the catwalk R10 walked in a large fur coat and a Kangol hat, no less than the look we have been used to seeing him in for the past few years and very similar to the one he appeared in the recent GOAT and PSG 'People of Paris' campaign. Among the successes of the collaboration is Dinho's role with Paris, the city in which he exploded and to which the former player's career is often linked, in a romantic vision almost more than in Barcelona. Ronaldinho has never hidden his love for Paris, the city of beauty, art and creativity - the essence of his game - and the city that welcomed him first as a footballer and then for his debut in the fashion world.  And bringing the Hawaiian Shaka gesture to the catwalks made everyone rediscover the joy of Joga Bonito.