It appears that English football has a bright future. There’s talk of a new wave of players emerging—young, dedicated, and exciting to watch. Sure, they’re team players, but they also want to show their individuality on the field. Jude Bellingham is one of them.
Jude took some time to develop a passion for football. During his neighborhood Saturday morning football practices, he liked to play tag more than football, but at the age of seven, he caught the bug and started playing in the Birmingham City Football Club academy, where he spent ten years. However, Jude Bellingham was an 11-year-old in Birmingham in January 2015, having only begun secondary school the previous term, and he was relishing the last few days of his Christmas break. Like most children his age, he enjoyed hanging out with his friends and was a fan of both Batman and Caribbean cuisine. And he cherished his football games: “All day, every day, any chance I could get to play football I was playing; break time, lunchtime at school, and then I’d finish school, come home, and then play outside with my mates for a bit on the little patch of grass… so just football non-stop, really,” he remembers.
The Gucci menswear show of January 2015 marked the ascendance of Alessandro Michele to the role of Creative Director at the house. A Roman and a 13-year veteran of the firm, steeped in its history, Michele took the reins at Gucci with a clear vision for what he wanted to achieve. That vision, now famously established, and perfectly expressed in the Love Parade collection he has created for this spring/summer, is one of Romantic eclecticism, and it has undoubtedly excited people’s desire for character and individualism in dress.
This approach has unquestionably engaged a new generation, hungry for a means of celebrating creativity and its sense of self. And Jude Bellingham is part of that generation. One that believes passionately in self-expression. “I always want to be authentic,” explains the footballer. “My interviews might have got me in trouble a couple of times this season already, but I feel like it’s always me talking, it’s never my ‘brand’ or the way I feel I should be speaking in terms of what other people think. So it’s always myself, whether it’s on the pitch, the way I act, or off the pitch. I know that I’m a respectful person, so I just try to be true to myself.”
Alessandro Michele has supported the freedom of expression and urged people to let their imaginations run wild. This is evident in his collections for Gucci, which feature happy, bohemian choices of unique clothing as well as a pop-culture mentality mixed with diverse, ornamental accessories that evoke the spirit of Florentine workmanship. Gucci evidently sees in Jude Bellingham the athletic embodiment of the kind of modern free spirits it is always drawn to.
The football player is definitely a member of the younger age, but he also has certain traditional tastes. Consider his taste in vintage films: “I enjoy viewing movies as a pastime. I enjoy viewing vintage movies, such as Scorsese and Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. I’m attempting to catch up on everything I missed 20 years before I was born before I start watching any of the more recent classics because I don’t really like the current movies. Jude is based in Germany with his mother, but his father, a movie enthusiast, still resides in Birmingham with his younger brother Jobe, a current Birmingham City player. My dad is undoubtedly my accomplice in crime because he sends me material to watch all the time.
