Wong Wong fuses design, fashion and football
NEW YORK — Good design is like good soccer: You can’t always describe it, but you know it when you see it. If anyone should be familiar with that rule, it's New York-based graphic and clothing designer Stephen Wong.
Having spent 10 years as an art director in the fashion industry, the Washington native has seen his fare share of both soccer and style while criss-crossing the globe for work and play.
“Fashion is a very different world … but it’s very much about art, and I still try to work that way,” Wong said. “I think football is an art as well.”
Wong is the founder of Wong Wong, a New York-based design collective with as much passion for the beautiful game as for beautifully made clothing and accessories.
Since 2007, Wong Wong has focused on creating a nexus between soccer and style by releasing products whose designs are not about flaunting your support but more about the subtle integration of the game into non-game day attire.
For six years, Wong was the art director for famed New York-by-way-of-Austria fashion house Helmut Lang and was based in New York and Paris. It was during his soccer-indulgent layovers in the two cities that he kickstarted his idea for Wong Wong.
“I really got into soccer when I was in Europe, and I started to go to Arsenal games in London a lot when I was working in Paris," he said. "I would book a stopover in London on my way back to New York or jump on the train a couple of times a year just to go watch Arsenal play."
But long before Highbury sunk its hook deep into Wong, it was a club much closer to home that introduced him to the game.
“I grew up in DC, and when MLS first started, D.C. United were in the news a lot for winning the first few titles, so that was my introduction," Wong recalls. “But Arsenal was my hook.”
Once firmly under soccer’s influence, Wong looked for a way to intertwine his twin obsessions, and he succeeded by launching his first Wong Wong products in 2008. Fast-forward to 2010 and the brand has released everything from a line of abstract, stadium-inspired T-shirts to playful World Cup-centric socks to subliminally suggestive cashmere soccer scarves.
The products are stylish and somewhat boutique in nature; it’s not the typical stuff found in your local soccer shop or stadium store. There are no jerseys or T-shirts with a club logo, but that’s the point.
“The goal of the brand is to translate football into fashion that can be worn everyday," Wong said. “I know it maybe skews toward the coasts or cities where people maybe dress up a little bit more, but it does get a reaction whether it’s the colors or just the style of it — and I like that.”
It may be a change from the typical, team-centric soccer style worn by many North American soccer fans, but it’s only fitting that the look continues to evolve parallel to the game.
And for Wong, watching the game change in North America, and in New York in particular, has been as pleasurable as watching his project grow from an idea hatched in an international departure lounge to a very real brand.
“It’s been great to see how soccer has grown in the US in the last couple of years," he said. "It used to always be about getting up to watch the EPL, but I’ve been going to a lot of Red Bull games this year and they’ve been great. Plus, taking the PATH train back to Manhattan with Henry is pretty cool.”
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