Browse all

Reinventing the Roma shirt: interview with Lorenzo Pellegrini and Manuela Giugliano

At the Nike Store event, the AS Roma players redesigned the Giallorossi's shirt

Reinventing the Roma shirt: interview with Lorenzo Pellegrini and Manuela Giugliano At the Nike Store event, the AS Roma players redesigned the Giallorossi's shirt

In recent years the idea of football shirt has evolved, from an element of performance and representative of the commitment to the team, to an aesthetic factor, appearing on the catwalks, in streetwear culture, becoming a real piece of art. Nike and AS Roma chose to reinterpret the three shirts that the brand has created for the team, one of the most appreciated on the football scene. At the event held at the Nike Store in Via del Corso, three artists, Ladynina, Detshorore and Cipstrega, reinterpreted the first, second and third 2019/2020 AS Roma shirts according to their own aesthetics. Alongside them there were three of AS Roma's most interesting young players: Lorenzo Pellegrini, Mirko Antonucci and Nicolò Zaniolo - with white coats, brushes and spray cans - and a delegation of players from the Roma Women team, Andressa, Elisa Bartoli, Vanessa Bernauer, Agnese Bonfantini, Manuela Giugliano and Annamaria Serturini

 

A particular experience for the footballers is to change the kit with which they take to the pitch every Sunday. Lorenzo Pellegrini told nss sports about the initiative: "It was different, it was the first time we were involved in such an initiative. It's nice because it makes the jersey yours. Then of course, if there's my name on the jersey I always feel it mine, but this was something different, fun". Manuela Giugliano, one of the Italy women's national soccer team most interesting and strong players, added: "It was a very interesting initiative, obviously reliving Roma's shirt is always an honour". With nss sports Pellegrini and Giugliano also spoke about their favourite Roma jersey of the current season. Pellegrini said: "My favorite every year is always the red, it's the one that represents me the most. The yellow last year or the blue this year are very beautiful. But the red one is always there, and that's what I like", while Giugliano chose the white one: "My favourite is the white one, at first glance it's the one that impressed me the most". We also talked about the details, which for Pellegrini are the first thing that stands out among the jerseys of the season: "The basic jersey is always the same, but for example this year we have lightning strikes on the arm. The details are the things that stand out the most", while Giugliano confessed to focusing immediately on the colour.

 

Pellegrini and Giugliano, together with Zaniolo and the other members of Roma, then immersed themselves in art, painting the sweaters. The first jersey was redesigned by Ladynina with a large lettering in graffiti-style: "I decided to write the name of the team. I'm an artist who does lettering and so I decided to reinterpret the shirt by writing Roma," she told nss sports. For the second jersey, instead, Detshorore chose to use the subject that he has been using for six years now, Japanese masks, to imagine the Roma jersey in a different way. For the blue jersey, the real surprise of the Giallorossi season, Cipstrega used a lettering with the words "Core de Roma", linked to the new golden boy of the city, Nicolò Zaniolo: "I chose this type of lettering because being a square thing goes well with everything else and the background I wanted to do so also to remember the net, the colors are connected to the jersey". The result was shown to the public by the host of the evening, the rapper Gemello, who set up a sort of 'applausometer', won by Zaniolo's team. The three jerseys will be displayed in the Roma Nike Stores and then they will be part of a charity initiative organized by Roma Cares.