PEP’S STARS TO WEAR CULT CASUAL BRAND IN EUROPE
MANCHESTER CITY are set to become the kings of casual style after agreeing a partnership deal with cult Italian fashion brand CP Company.
Pep Guardiola and his players will be kitted out by the hip designer label when they travel on away trips in the Champions League next season after the Treble winners sealed a lucrative arrangement that replaces the tie-up they’ve had for the last eight years with Dsquared2.
Jack Grealish, Erling Haaland and Co will model the company’s expensive range of apparel when they travel around Europe.
CP Company is synonymous with the ‘casual’ subculture that’s been a way of life for thousands of style-conscious football fans since the late 1970s. The label was created in 1971 by Massimo Osti, the late Italian designer who is regarded as the godfather of urban sportswear.
Osti was also the visionary behind Stone Island, a brand that’s been in vogue on the terraces for decades and is also a firm favourite of City manager Guardiola (right).
He often wears designer clothes on the touchline rather than opting to be tracksuitedand-booted like many of his fellow bosses.
Guardiola’s wife Cristina Serra owns her own exclusive clothes boutique in Barcelona, and the City boss has regularly credited her with helping him to refine his dress sense.
Now Guardiola will get his pick of CP Company’s most exclusive designs. City are understood to be delighted with their new fashion partner – and see the deal as another sign that it’s ‘business as usual’ at the Etihad.
The new link-up doesn’t affect the club’s long-term kit deal with sportswear giants
Puma, which is worth £65million a year.
But it does illustrate how City’s pulling power is continuing to grow at a rate unmatched in the Premier League, when it comes to harnessing new commercial opportunities.
The club has been able to announce record-breaking revenues of £712m last year – and banked another £300m in prize-money after winning the Champions
League, Premier League and FA Cup.