Nestled on a corner in Williamsburg, the lifestyle concept store Tangerine premiered Systemarosa’s latest collection of vintage football jerseys and accessories. Founders Naomi Accardi and Sam Herzog combined their shared love of fashion and football to curate their second New York City collection that showcases a unique and often forgotten feature of sports history: its style. 

The brand developed because the two founders wanted to leverage their creativity to pay homage to the sport that has deeply impacted their lives. Growing up on the Italian countryside as the daughter of professional soccer player Giuseppe Accardi, football has been ever present in Accardi’s life. Herzog is a lifelong soccer player who had been seamlessly infusing football into her daily style for years. In 2023, the women who had long worked tangentially to each other, “decided to just create something ourselves” as Herzog describes the collaboration. The brainchild of two fashion industry veterans has evolved into a successful experiment of what happens when creatives find inspiration beyond the boundaries of their field. 

This spirit of taking the chance to elaborate a fruitful creative project is present throughout their collection, most notably in the way they let fashion’s playful and competitive aspects play off one another. While Accardi was in Italy, Herzog floated through the room in a vintage Moschino soccer ball skirt she styled as a sequenced and rounded tube top. Another welcomed twist to the soccer ball was the Systemarosa x Veto bag collaboration. Presented throughout the store in different colors, these bags were the most popular of the night with guests admiring their structure and surprisingly spacious interior. 

The collection also included smaller accessories such as socks and a few pieces of jewelry. However, the rare jerseys neatly organized between Tangerine’s other collections were the truest testament to the combination of fashion, history, and football. 

What was most exciting about the jerseys was how eclectic they ranged in style, period, and material. As Herzog acknowledged, there are few brands which use soccer as an entry point for fashion. This lack, however, has given Systemarosa an opportunity and push to define their unexplored market. It is clear that Accardi and Herzog have taken the time to curate pieces from the 1970s to the 1990s which included a range of European designers and smaller club football teams. Some of the pieces looked as if they had just come off the backs of players. Others, like those made of cotton or those which were not traditional jerseys, showed Herzog and Accardi’s talent for scouting pieces which captured the essence of the sport without undermining their aesthetic value.

Additionally, the founder put clear emphasis on centering femme-styling and pieces. Herzog expressed that while they are inclusive to everyone, they wanted to make something “woman-centered” since sports so often underplay femininity. The crowd inside the store reflected this proclivity towards the feminine, where even male-presenting patrons embraced that, for the night, the beauty of sports and the beauty of fashion were interchangeable.