“Canelo has been a longtime supporter of Amiri, and last year we had the opportunity to sit with him and exchange ideas,” Nima Zaribaf, Amiri’s senior global vice president of brand and communications, said over email on their partnership. Álvarez also starred in the brand’s FW25 campaign. “What we discovered was that he and Mike share many of the same values: a dedication to their respective crafts, the pursuit of excellence and a shared passion for inspiring the next generation.”
There’s some history tying the two together. Hublot sponsored Floyd Mayweather, while Hugo Boss once sponsored Vitali Klitschko, a former professional boxer and now the Mayor of Kyiv. More recently, Emporio Armani has dressed the likes of Ryan Garcia. Now, one-off ambassadorships are giving way to holistic crossovers. Experts compare it to tennis’s big fashion year, which evolved from athlete sponsorship to cultural touchstone. “If you look at how sports and fashion are merging, boxing is just behind the curve. It has been a very fragmented sport [with no singular governing body or organization]. Plus, it’s had some colorful characters in the past, and big global brands have pretty much stayed away from boxing,” Michael Murray, CEO of Frasers Group, which owns Everlast and its gyms, tells Vogue Business.
What’s changing now is that more fashion brands are realizing the opportunity, and key players in boxing are working to make it easier for brands to partner with the right fighter. Those that play a dominant role in outfitting players, namely Everlast, want to become a sort of broker between boxers and high-end fashion brands partnering on highly visible moments. Promoters are also gaining awareness and working fashion partnerships into how they believe will boost the talent on their roster.
This matters especially because the sport poses some unique challenges for fashion collaborations. For one, it has no governing body (unlike Formula 1 or Uefa Champions League), which makes it more complicated for interested brands to know where and how to fit in. As more labels become open to the idea and opportunity, Murray says he wants Everlast to be a platform that connects boxers, who “want to express themselves and align themselves with culturally relevant fashion brands”.
Bronx-born Everlast has been slowly building out its roster of collaborations, including with Saint Laurent, Supreme and Urban Outfitters. Now, Murray plans for Everlast to start making special kits for fighters so that unique pieces are part of a bigger cultural moment rather than shopping only. Since Crawford’s special kit came together quickly, he didn’t want to let “perfection get in the way of progress”, but would have liked to sell corresponding and limited-edition gloves or boots — which is the plan moving forward. This is why the Palm Angels and Everlast collaboration worn by Benn, for example, has inspired sellable merch.
