When Simon Porte Jacquemus was a child growing up in the small town of Salon-de-Provence, he wore a French national team jersey that his grandmother bought from a local market — a faded polyester relic that he has described as his first fashion memory. That personal history threads through Les Bleus by Jacquemus, the designer’s collaboration with Nike and the French Football Federation on the national team’s pre-match kit for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The collection, revealed on June 1, is a study in tactile nostalgia: relaxed-fit jerseys in cream and navy, track pants cut with a generous ease, knit scarves and bucket hats that trade sportswear logos for Jacquemus’s own typography. It is, unmistakably, the work of a designer who understands football culture from inside rather than observing it from fashion’s distance.
For Nike, the collaboration is part of a broader strategy to embed fashion credibility into its World Cup activations. The brand’s X2 collection, which pairs designers with national federations, has already produced notable collaborations — and the Jacquemus partnership is its highest-profile crossover yet. For the French Football Federation, the collaboration extends a decade-long effort to reposition Les Bleus as a lifestyle brand as much as a sports institution, leveraging the team’s global appeal into merchandise revenue that rivals the top European clubs.
The design language is characteristically Jacquemus: clean, sunbaked, deliberately understated. The cream jersey features a tonal Nike Swoosh and a small French Federation crest, with Jacquemus’s name embroidered in delicate script at the hem. The navy version inverts the palette but maintains the same restraint. There is none of the graphic overload that has defined recent World Cup kits from other nations; instead, the collection evokes the simplicity of 1990s warm-up gear, filtered through Jacquemus’s signature proportion play — slightly dropped shoulders, elongated cuffs, a hem that falls longer than standard athletic cut. The accessories — a cotton bucket hat, a fringed scarf, a red-and-blue striped duffel bag — complete the picture of a fan uniform that reads equally well on the terraces and on the streets of Saint-Germain.
The cultural timing is propitious. The World Cup arrives in the summer of 2026 at a moment when the boundaries between sport, fashion, and pop culture have all but dissolved. A pre-match kit designed by a fashion designer is no longer an oddity; it is increasingly the standard, as national teams recognize that their visual identity during a month-long global tournament functions more like a brand campaign than a uniform. If the Les Bleus by Jacquemus kit sells out — and early indicators suggest it will — expect every federation with a World Cup berth to start calling their favorite designer.
