TikTok Trends: Mixing Football and Fashion With ‘Blokecore’

Combining sports and fashion is nothing new. In case you missed it, MLB opened its flagship store in Singapore at Mandarin Gallery last October 2022. It was a real treat to baseball fans and those who love fashionable streetwear. But what about football? Well, we’re not going to focus on a brand this time, but there has been a trend where TikTok users are dressing up in their favourite football shirts. Meet blokecore.

When Football and Fashion Meet

Blokecore came from the words “bloke,” which means “a man” in British English, and “-core,” which is a suffix social media users (specifically Gen Z) use to describe niche fashion trends. Think normcore or Barbiecore.

To explain in simplest terms, it’s a trend that involves wearing a football shirt, a looser fit denim, and a pair of white shoes. According to Know Your Meme, its origin was from a December 2021 TikTok post by Brandon Huntley where he posted “Hottest trend of 2022: bloke core.”

Why Blokecore Became Popular

Blokecore was slowly but surely getting popular on TikTok in late 2021 and early 2022, but it’s believed to have gained more momentum thanks to the FIFA World Cup last year. The sporting event brought together football fans around the world, wearing their favourite shirts to pubs, especially at a time when governments are starting to relax COVID-19 pandemic measures. This allowed more people outside, and for them to dress up.

Many also attribute blokecore’s popularity to Spanish professional footballer and fashion icon Héctor Bellerín, particularly during their victory at the Copa del Rey Final when he appeared in a kit that looks like he jumped out of the '80s.

How You Can Follow the Trend

If we’re going to be specific about blokecore, the football shirt must be vintage.

A few examples you can try finding at stores are the FC Barcelona 2010-11 Messi #10 UCL Final Home Shirt, the Liverpool FC 2015-16 Home Shirt, the Argentina 2006 Messi #19 World Cup Home Shirt, the Brasil 1998 Ronaldo #9 World Cup Home Shirt, and the list goes on. There are many options, so you don’t have to worry about their rarity.

The denim also needs to be a straight leg fit from Levi’s and the shoes must be the adidas Samba.

But, then again, we’re not the fashion police. If you want to follow this trend, you don’t have to burn a hole in your pocket and just wear whichever works. As long as you can pull off the look confidently, that should be enough.