Fashion’s new WAG playbook focuses on the women’s accomplishments, not their famous partners – Charm

This week, we take a look at the fashion brands that are collaborating with WAGs — wives and girlfriends of professional athletes. While WAGs aren’t new, the tone and tenor of the collaborations are, emphasizing the women’s accomplishments and careers just as much as their connection to men’s sports.

The love affair between fashion and sports is spilling off the court. While athletes like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Lewis Hamilton are well-known for their stylish collaborations, fashion brands are now turning to another source of sports star power: the romantic partners of athletes.

The acronym WAGs, meaning wives and girlfriends, comes from the British tabloid press in their coverage of the women associated with soccer players. But the term has expanded beyond soccer and beyond the U.K. The women involved with NBA players, NFL players, tennis stars and more have become common fashion collaborators.

According to brands and experts, the role these women play in both sports and fashion is changing. Not only are they serving as brand ambassadors, but they’re also taking a more active role in fashion as trendsetters and even designers. And often, the most influential women are just as notable for their own careers as for the men they’re linked to.

One illustrative example is Kristin Juszczyk. Married to NFL player Kyle Juszczyk, she is a fashion designer whose brand, Off Season, has significantly expanded in the nine months since its launch. It started with an NFL licensing deal after Taylor Swift, herself one of the most famous WAGs in the world, wore one of Juszcyk’s dresses to a Kansas City Chiefs game. Last week, Off Season launched its first NBA collaboration, a capsule fashion collection made for fans of the Chicago Bulls, Boston Celtics, New York Knicks, Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors.

This week, True Religion unveiled a major holiday marketing campaign called “Wrapped in True,” featuring a number of famous women closely tied to men’s sports. The face of the campaign is the singer Ciara, who has a hit song, “Low,” that’s trending on TikTok and appears in the campaign. Her husband is NFL player Russel Wilson.

Ciara is joined by several other famous women, including rapper Kash Doll, who is dating NFL player Da’Zarius Smith, and model Nicole Anderson, who is dating NFL player Jahmyr Gibbs. They are joined by tennis player Ayan Broomfield, who is married to tennis player Frances Tiafoe; real estate broker Mahogany Jones, dating NFL player Deebo Samuel; and fashion brand founder Alisah Chanel, who is married to NBA player P.J. Washington. The women are promoting True Religion through social and digital campaign assets, out-of-home ads, their own social channels, and experiential events on a college tour.

True Religion CMO Kristen D’Arcy told Glossy it was important that each of the women featured had a career and notability outside of their husbands and boyfriends.

“We call them multi-hyphenates,” D’Arcy said. “They have their own things going on, and they just happen to have this connection to sports.”

The women of the campaign have extensive followings. Ciara, in particular, has over 35 million followers, while Kash Doll has nearly 8 million. They’re also helping True Religion reach its goal of elevating the women’s side of its business to 60% of its revenue. Currently, it’s at about 50%.

The True Religion campaign follows a similar one launched last week from Abercrombie & Fitch, also bringing together many famous women with a connection to a male athlete. Abercrombie’s campaign featured actress Olivia Culpo, married to San Francisco 49er Christian McCaffrey; Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, who is dating Cleveland Browns’s Myles Garrett; nurse Brooklyn Adams, who is dating Detroit Lions player Amon-Ra St. Brown; basketball player Haley Cavinder, who is dating Dallas Cowboys player Jake Ferguson; volleyball player Ronika Stone Love, married to Green Bay Packer Jordan Love; and influencer Allison Kucharczyk, who is married to former NFL player Isaac Rochell. These women appeared in Abercrombie’s marketing campaigns and are sporting the brand’s clothes at games throughout the season.

“These women are much more than an acronym; they are shaping culture both on and off the field,” Abercrombie & Fitch CMO Carey Collins Krug said in a statement to Glossy. “Our campaign is about celebrating the influence they have in shaping conversations at the intersection of fashion, sport and culture — and outfitting them for every part of that journey.”

Toni Ferrara, the founder of the brand agency Ferrara Media, said the concept of a WAG is going through a rebrand right now. Ferrara hosts a weekly NFL x pop culture segment on Fox’s LiveNow broadcast channel. The NFL’s television ratings have soared, with games last season averaging over 18 million viewers per game, a record high.

“Sports and fashion have always flirted, but right now, they’re in a full-blown relationship,” she said. “The NFL is realizing its female audience is one of its most powerful fanbases, and WAGs are the bridge. They’re authentic and aspirational, and already have the trust of women who may have tuned in for Taylor Swift but are staying for the fashion.”

But there is a “risk of tokenization” of these women, Ferrara said. The term WAG has been criticized as sexist, reducing the women to only being defined by their connection to men. That’s why it’s notable that the recent crop of WAG-centric campaigns and collaborations has taken great pains to praise the women for their work outside of what their husbands and boyfriends do.

“For brands, collaborating with WAGs isn’t about riding a trend, it’s about tapping into an evolving cultural movement,” said Megan Vasquez, director of influencer strategy at influencer marketing platform GRIN. “The key is to approach these women as creative partners, not accessories to their partners’ fame. Many are already running their own businesses or launching product lines, which means the collaboration has to feel authentic to their voice, aesthetic and audience. Think: less ‘sideline style’ and more ‘sports-adjacent cultural capital.’”

Stat of the week

Nearly half of all Halloween-related shopping on the live shopping app Whatnot is vintage-related, the company told Glossy this week. There’s been a 115% increase year-over-year in customers buying vintage and secondhand clothes to dress up for Halloween. In particular, Y2K fashion has seen a 930% increase in sales, especially in vintage sexy clothing like lingerie and Playboy-branded merchandise.

News to know

Walmart is pausing the hiring of workers who need H1-B visas to work in the United States, after the Trump administration announced an increase in application fees. President Trump said last month that the government would begin asking for $100,000 per application for an H1-B visa as part of the administration’s efforts to curtail immigration to the country.
The exact details of new E.U. regulations that would put more onus on businesses for the waste and ultimate lifecycle of their products are still up in the air. After pressure from countries like the U.S. and Qatar, E.U. authorities were weighing whether to cut back on the intensity of the new regulations. But the effort to dilute the regulations was defeated in a vote on Wednesday, meaning further negotiations are necessary.
Swiss watch exports to the U.S. continue to fall, plummeting by 56% in the last month. The increased tariff rates on Switzerland caught the entire industry off-guard when they were announced earlier this fall.