Balancing tradition and innovation can be tricky. As the eldest of North America’s four major professional sports leagues by far, Major League Baseball must walk the razor-thin tightrope of embracing change while still honoring its storied past.
Their new partnership with Aviator Nation does that in several ways.
Founded by Paige Mycoskie in 2006, the uber-popular lifestyle and leisurewear brand has become known for unique collaborations with everything from music festivals like Lollapalooza, to Saturday Night Live, to Shark Week. AV’s first foray into MLB is a six-team limited-edition launch: Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, Los Angeles Dodgers, Texas Rangers, and both New York teams.
“It’s an all-American sport, we’re all-American, made here in the USA, by hand in California,” Jennifer Crawford, Aviator Nation’s vice president of partnership, told the Herald.
Sports leagues and brands have come under fire in the past for pigeon-holing and gender stereotyping; women’s fan apparel is often pink, floral, sequined, bedazzled, form-fitting.
Aviator Nation’s limited-edition lineup is entirely unisex. The Red Sox collection boasts “super-soft” sweats and tees in the team’s classic shades of red, white and blue.
“There’s the customer that loves the bedazzled and the embellishment, and then there’s the customer that loves the simple throwback, vintage t-shirt,” Crawford said. “I think being able to have something for everyone is important.”
It’s a timely partnership for the Red Sox, in particular, as they celebrate the 50th anniversary of their iconic 1975 pennant team.
“Our entire sort of brand aesthetic has that 1970s vintage vibe,” said Crawford. “What we’ve tried to do with MLB, they have the Cooperstown Collection, which are the more vintage-inspired logos, so we mixed-and-matched just kind of depending on what worked best for the collect and then incorporating elements of Aviator Nation that are recognizable to everyone like the stripes or the fonts on the sleeve.”
In general, Boston was a perfect fit because it’s a sports town where fandom goes far beyond the confines of the ballpark. Red Sox t-shirts, jerseys and baseball caps are everyday apparel.
“Athleisure and more elevated lifestyle leisure-wear has grown into the sports world where people are wearing their fan gear year-round, not just to games but as part of their regular lifestyle, so that’s why it was really fun to create these sweats for Boston,” she said. “Everybody is in fan gear. I mean, literally everybody.”
The Mets and Yankees will be the final team drops this season, on both AV’s site and MLBshop.com. They hope to launch between six and eight new team collections next year.
