With a big love for the game in The Big Apple, we speak to Diego Moscoco, designer and founder of Nowhere F.C. to grab a slice of his vision on where football meets fashion.
Nowhere F.C. has given football something completely fresh and independent, what inspired you to add your creative edge to football?
"Us being us. We come from making things and New York is naturally creative and fast paced. We want to share who we are and also hopefully entertain or connect."
The house style stands out in its own right, where did the tie die inspiration come from?
"Working with what you have, yet needing to stand out led to that. If everyone has the same Nike or Umbro or whatever, how do you make a uniform that distinguishes your team from the others? Making custom shirts from scratch is too expensive at these small quantities, we can always go there later. Dying found-pieces is faster and less expensive. Also we can go outside of just jerseys, and find hunting tops, items from other sports, construction gear, used, old, dead-stock, one-off. So we pretty much scavenged up some experimental things and each one gets approached a bit different."
"Customizing is kind of an American tradition, in gangs, sports, and collegiate, but most directly to us is the customizing traditions in New York subculture, hip hop crews, and punk: items embroidered up, colored with markers, dyed, painted, etc. It was a core practice for broke kids, they invented a lot of the looks still used today by having limitation of artistic choices. We're also influenced by the tie-dye of surf and hippie type 60's/70's stuff, that's like early streetwear really, a lot of those surf culture brands had that freedom. Being experimental and not having to think about marketing allows us to test some things, then one thing leads to another. Bong bong. We dyed something."
Football is riding a creative wave right now, why do you think that is and how does it feel to be a part of it?
"Football seems to have always been about self-expression and creative competition; strategy requires creativity. This is the internet version of football, the next-gen. It's exciting in the sense that there's conversations and competition everywhere on this one big thing called "football." It's also a bit misleading if not deeply respected or articulated. The vague association with football is definitely a magnet for people looking to turn novelty into opportunities for themselves. This can lead to shallow ideas, or be the prey of advertising guys or the new art-advertising guys, whatever that is. I think the creative wave is exactly like the internet at its current state: a mile wide but an inch deep. But it will keep getting better I'm sure, past the noise. When people learn how to stay in their own lane then they can also have the freedom and ability to better collaborate with other cultures, without being shallow."
What are your aspirations for Nowhere F.C.?
"We got together to build a Marc Jacobs company team for a local New York tournament in 2010, some of us happened to be inside employees at LVMH at the time. We used those resources to put together a little squad and the factories to suit up the team and other teams at Lion's Gate Field. We pretty much had gear and assets building from day one. The plan was that maybe in 30-40 years we'd have a club that would qualify and fundraise into one of the European division leagues, through a complex strategy of crowd-sourcing, club businesses, and global satellites with revolving synergy in marketing, recruitment, retail and hospitality. It could be like building a club in England in the late 1800's, starting out, but now we have startup lawyers and computers. A quality oligarch with vision and patience could also accelerate this. Like any other club, our board is always considering new deals, assets, and improving the agenda of The FC. Our origin is in the global graffiti crew FC, Fame City Kings, New York 1982, and we are carrying on with style and strategy DNA for the times. We started in NY but NY is global so we are always becoming increasingly global."
With the work you guys have been doing and the likes of Football Cafe, how would you describe the New York football scene right now?
"New York looks like the United Nations. Styles collide daily, it's the world's city for sure. They are building more fields and need more open time for kids to play so they can get into a system and learn good habits young. A lot of the field time is locked up in grandfathered-in city permits with agents who take considerable markups to run self-running leagues or just re-sell field time. They got off the field permits when it was less saturated demand here. That system could be modernized now that the demand is high, it's New York real estate like any other, in a bit of a public land loophole. But all this is a sign that so many levels of football are exploding."
The US has found new displays of football affection through creative mediums. What do you think this sub culture looks like going forward?
"There are so many subcultures that could be associated, some parallel, also many people doing their own thing. It would be great to see small independent football clubs continue to grow into small businesses. From a business model standpoint, the sport of football has the built in promotion/relegation system that mirrors capitalism, more than the closed fraternity-ownership of the traditional American sports leagues (or NCAA, which amazingly still doesn't pay it's athletes or allow them to create their own deals.) That’s not really capitalism, it’s state-subsidized and a collusion between a small number of large/old businesses. There's no room for new competition, they've locked in TV deals so a more open, free capitalistic competition is blocked."
"But there is more of a built in open-mindedness to small business in the mainstream culture of global football. I think this is why it's so natural to see so many people "making their own" football club or business these days. It's a DIY sport on so many levels and will continue that way as long as there are kids in the world with no ball and no shoes becoming dope anyway. Combine that low-level effort with the NY and USA corporate drive for marketing and industry and it's explosive. Top-to-bottom the subcultures and the mainstream cultures will go back and forth and partner in creative ways. Big firms ally with small firms, just like small clubs develop players for bigger clubs. Business and sport mirror more and more on all levels. This isn't able to happen in MLB, NBA or NFL, which is why they are reaching saturation points and not able to show the next-gen growth of football. The streets will keep going in football, but in baseball and NFL? I'm not so much. As Americans most of us play other sports as well, this is just the future."
The team of players seems to have grown to a healthy level, has this been pretty organic?
"Pretty natural here. New York is overflowing with visitors, international friends, and a large homegrown football community. The guys who have our style gravitate here and have collected a few trophies as they go. It's definitely organic and not really a big deal here, there’s just always games to watch or play. Football City."
You can see more about Fly Nowhere here. Photography by Elizabeth Bick.
