When Haute Couture Meets An Eternal Derby

By: chris | March 18th, 2009

Imagine you play for Rangers and [Insert Scottish brand of high fashion here] has made professional attire for your travels. Suits, shirts, ties – the whole lot. Only problem is they’re pinstriped. Green and white pinstriped. Oh my.

Or say you’re on the books of Roma and Valentino Garavino holds a runway show to unleash the hue on your new duds: baby blue. (With an eagle on the back for good measure.)

Unthinkable, right? Not for Austrian fashion house Tlapa, who decked Rapid Wien (or Vienna, if you prefer) out in purple suits – the color of hated cross-city rivals Austria Wien. Oops.

I think, be a player or fan, you’d quite reasonably lose your mind. That’s the eleventh commandment, the extra-special amendment added upon the creation of football: thou shalt not wear the colors of thy hated rival. (Number twelve I believe is “thou shalt not take thy penalty if just fouled”.

But what’s perhaps more ridiculous is that the fashion house is saying, “oh, it’s all cool – purple is ‘in’…and it’s really more of a lavender”:

“Purple is the colour of the season – and I would say the collection’s tone is lavender.”

That might as well be, “that’s hunter green, Mr. Ferguson, not a moss green – no worries”.

There are some players who do genuinely care about fashion – they need something to blow that money on after all – but I think if you were to ask any whether they’d rather a nice suit in their rivals’ colors or a double-breasted number off the ‘Irregulars’ rack…well, anyone with even half a brain would suck up their pride and roll into that airport with one sleeve twice as long as the other.

But kudos to Stefan Maierhofer, Rapid’s 2.02m striker, who’s taking it all in stride – because he can take it all in stride: