How Venezia Became the World's Most Fashion-Forward Football Club

The rich history, the romance, the biennalles, the architecture, the art, the canals, the style…and now, the football.

Venice is culturally rich in countless departments, but for the first time in 19 years, the floating city has risen up to have its very own football team playing in Serie A: Venezia FC.

Despite the brilliance and the beauty of the city itself, Venezia FC haven’t had a conventional route to the top. The club has been through financial chaos and backroom turmoil, through to relegations and takeovers in the last couple of decades – but despite having sink or swim moments, the last few years have seen the club flourish on the world stage in an entirely different light.

The Venetians have truly gone blind in their kit drops in the last few years, gaining virality and a fanbase across the globe due to the sheer levels they’ve brought to the jersey game. We’ve long been advocates of pushing the drip > results narrative, but Venezia FC have had a whole lot of both in good portion in the last few years.

Despite players and fans having to travel to the 11,150 capacity Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo via boat, the club have risen up with a clear Moneyball philosophy and a marketing team that has turned them into a bonafide behemoth when it comes to their style and sartorial prowess.

Following a slew of slick jerseys sponsored by Nike, Venezia blew the game out the water with their Kappa-sponsored kits in 2021/22 – designed in partnership with NYC studio Fly Nowhere. It goes without saying that the kits have been an undisputed success, gaining the sort of hype and headlines more commonly associated with Nigeria and PSG kit releases. On the first day of it going on sale, the home kit sold out. Ever since that drop day, 95% of online sales have all come from outside Italy. Venezia FC have gone global.

Each of the four jerseys released this season were executed with a degree of high art befitting of the Doge’s Palace, with lookbooks that resemble something closer to a Bottega Venetta zine than your bog standard kit roll out. Ted Philipakos, Venezia FC CMO, is one of the masterminds behind the club’s meteoric rise on and off the pitch. With Fly Nowhere leading shirt design for the season, Ted took the creative direction of the shirts from the boardroom to the pitch at breakneck pace – but came up just as clutch as the club’s last minute heroics to earn promotion to Serie A back in May.

While the club began to rise out of the deep, the former NYU sports marketing professor oversaw Venezia’s switch to Kappa from Nike – and nothing has been the same for the club ever since. Venezia’s fairytale ride back to the top has been well documented, but the story less shouted about is how the club has gone from the brink of drowning to dripping expeditiously once again.