MCM, adidas and FC Bayern Women have made a capsule for people who are always in transit. The tracksuit has never looked so well travelled.
There is a particular kind of elegance reserved for the athlete in motion: the one who has just stepped off the coach, bag over her shoulder, and has somewhere to be. It lives in the pause between the match and the next match, in departure lounges and hotel corridors. This is the territory MCM, adidas and FC Bayern Women have set out to claim with their new three-way capsule, and it is a more persuasive idea than the usual logo-swap collaboration.
MCM x adidas x FC Bayern
The logic starts in Munich, where MCM was founded in 1976 as something of an ‘enfant terrible’ of luxury, a brand built for the unapologetically glamours nightlife of the city’s 1970s scene. Now marking its 50th anniversary, it has turned to sport as one of its pillars. In July it was named the official travel luggage partner to FC Bayern Women’s team, and the capsule grows directly from that role: leather goods designed around the real demands of elite international travel.
Two familiar MCM shapes anchor the leather. The Ottomar Weekender and the Brandenburg Backpack arrive in the house’s Cognac Visetos monogram, now sharing space with the FC Bayern crest. Cream leather trim gives them a faintly sporting air, like a well-kept trainer sole, which is a clever way of making luxury look as though it has somewhere to run.
MCM x FC Bayern | Left: Brandenburg Backpack | Right: Ottomar Weekender
The clothes are adidas’ department. The brand has taken its signature tracksuit and filtered it through MCM’s heritage motifs, with the three stripes intact. The football uniform becomes everyday dressing in the form of unisex and women’s jerseys, full-zip track tops, wide-leg track pants and joggers. It is the sort of wardrobe that makes sense on a long-haul flight and just as much sense at dinner on the other side of it. Footwear completes the picture.
What gives the project its mood is where it was photographed. MCM travelled with the team on their summer tour, dressing the players in bags and backpacks, and the campaign was shot at the first stop, Tokyo. The images are set against traditional Japanese architecture and gardens, and the result is deliberately unhurried.
These are players caught in moments of transition and calm, with the spontaneity of how they exist away from the pitch left intact. It is quiet luxury applied to the quietest part of an athlete’s day, and a pleasing change from the usual fist-pumping sports campaign.
MCM x adidas x FC Bayern
There is a satisfying symmetry to the trio. A Munich luxury house with a nomad’s heart, a sportswear giant whose Trefoil has been a street-culture shorthand since 1972, and a football club with a women’s team rising in its own right. Each could carry a capsule along, but together they make a case that German craft, sport and football belong in the same wardrobe.
by Imogen Clark
MCM, adidas and FC Bayern Women is available to purchase worldwide here.