How China styles soccer as DIY and vintage

In March, Adidas transformed the 91-year-old Lagena Primary School in Shanghai into a soccer-themed flea market. Vintage kits, reworked jerseys and DIY-customized shirts covered the tables. Over two days, more than 17,000 people showed up, according to the brand, which generated over 8,000 pieces of organic user content. “Walking into the campus made people instantly get the nostalgic feeling of being back in school,” says Yuang Hu, Adidas’ Shanghai-based manager of brand communications for sneaker culture and basketball. “Unlike Western countries, Chinese households don’t really have a backyard. The school is our collective backyard, where you enjoy sports and culture from day one.”gl Soccer may have long been part of school life in China, but the country’s appetite for off-duty soccer style is a newer development. Driven by Xiaohongshu virality, globally literate young consumers, and World Cup fandom (the tournament is less than two months away), soccer aesthetics are embedding themselves into Chinese streetwear, resale culture, and identity-led fashion. The numbers bear that out. During the 2022 World Cup, Fifa reported that China accounted for 49.8% of all hours of viewing on digital and social platforms globally, and 17.7% of the tournament’s total linear TV reach worldwide, more than any other single market. For brands watching China, the signal is clear: soccer fashion is crossing from the pitch into streetwear, resale culture, and Gen Z identities. With the World Cup fast approaching, the window to enter this conversation is narrowing. Chinese Gen Z soccer style On Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNote), the metrics tracking soccer as fashion are just as striking. The hashtag “MuseJerseyStyle” — an Adidas-led campaign positioning jerseys as high-fashion wardrobe pieces — has accumulated over 25 million impressions. #Blokette, the female-coded evolution of blokecore that positions soccer shirts as everyday style, has garnered 54.2 million impressions. Even #Bootsonlysummer, a more niche but globally resonant 2025 soccer boot trend, has logged 648,800 impressions. Together, these hashtags map a consumer who draws on athleisure, sporting merchandise, and China’s DIY aesthetic. “Adidas the brand comes from soccer and the culture born from it," says Yuang. "For Shanghai and the entire China market, consumers embraced global trends very well: blokecore, jersey chic, Bootsonlysummer. Soccer culture and fashion penetrates into people’s daily lives.” Yuang says the Shanghai flea market was designed to activate that convergence. Community-led branding Shanghai-based grassroots club Anar FC illustrates that demand from street level. “On the city’s streets, we are witnessing rising engagement with soccer-inspired style, while street outfits centered around basketball are gradually fading in popularity,” founder Raymond Fu. He is careful about scale: “When compared with other sports such as basketball, the current enthusiasm is far from becoming a nationwide mainstream phenomenon.” But he sees a generational pivot. “Younger generations realize that soccer is more than just a competitive sport. It can be deeply integrated into lifestyle, street culture and fashion.” Fu positions Anar as evidence of a broader consumer evolution. Since 2022, he says, jerseys have become visible across China as a wardrobe staple. Through collaborations with the likes of buzzy Chinese label Esoteric Thing and Nike Soccer, among others, Anar extracts core soccer aesthetics and reworks them into contemporary apparel — selecting designers, directing narratives, partnering with jersey studios. “It is quite common to spot people wearing Anar pieces on the streets of Shanghai,” he says. “Many of them may not follow soccer, nor know the story behind Anar. And that is exactly what we aim for.” International names have long been stoking demand. Martine Rose’s soccer-inspired reinterpretations of the Nike Shox since 2022, Wales Bonner’s collaborations with Adidas, and the sustained blokecore wave all signal that soccer aesthetics carry serious credibility in global fashion. China’s consumers, plugged into these references through Xiaohongshu and resale platforms, have also been absorbing them. China’s appetite for soccer fashion has moved far beyond stadium jerseys and into a more experimental, street-led aesthetic, opening up space for domestic labels like Selffab to thrive. Drawing inspiration from its dual bases in Hong Kong and Shanghai, the label reflects a distinctly East Asian take on global soccer culture. Another standout is Encompass, which has 1.3 million impressions on Xiaohongshu. Think Manchester United shirts reworked with lace sleeves or corset-like cinching at the waist, while caps are reconstructed through patchwork panels that marry fan merchandise and couture craft. The result is a playful but intentional distortion of club iconography — soccer as a canvas for remixing and self-expression within China’s rapidly evolving street fashion scene. The Adidas flea market worked because it translated a global soccer-fashion moment into a specifically Chinese emotional register — nostalgia, community, the school courtyard. DIY customization, grassroots kits, and cult-brand collaborations all tap into a desire for belonging and self-expression that generic licensing deals cannot. Fan culture in China operates differently, club and player loyalty carries less than in Europe or South America. But for brands assessing where to place their attention before kick-off this summer, the signal from Shanghai is consistent: soccer fashion in China is a growing opportunity.

How China styles soccer as DIY and vintage

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How China styles soccer as DIY and vintage

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag