When MEYBA and Fred Perry first started talking, it didn’t take long for the idea of “crossover” to fall away.
“Pretty early on it stopped feeling like just another collaboration,” says Jonathan Jones, MEYBA’s Head of Marketing. “It just made sense.”
On paper, the two brands occupy different sporting worlds – football and tennis – but that framing misses the point. Both brands built their reputations on performance before drifting, naturally, into something broader.
Seen through that lens, the collection – which officially lands at MEYBA and Fred Perry on April 9th – feels less like a meeting of opposites and more like a continuation of parallel histories. That shared trajectory is what gives the collection its clarity. After all, there’s no need to force a narrative when both brands have been telling similar stories for decades.
MEYBA’s side of that story is anchored in one of football’s most mythologised periods: FC Barcelona’s ‘Dream Team’ era. It’s a legacy that could easily tip into pastiche, but the approach here is more considered.
“That era is defining for MEYBA, so it naturally fed into everything,” said Jones. “But we didn’t want to do basic retro replicas.” Instead, the reference point is more atmospheric than literal. It’s less about recreating specific kits and more about capturing the moment football clothing first started to mean something off the pitch.
That thinking runs through the entire collection. The visual cues are familiar: bold striping, ringer tees, open collars, track tops. “It was just about not overdoing it,” added Jones. “We’ve taken those vintage cues but softened them through more modern fits.”
The result sits in a useful middle ground: current, without feeling detached from where it came from. And with two of the most recognisable marks in sport – Fred Perry’s Laurel Wreath and MEYBA’s crest – there was a temptation to lean into the collaboration visually. They chose not to. “Both logos already say a lot, so there was no need to shout about it. Keeping them clean, in their usual positions, felt like the right thing to do.”
It’s a small decision, but an important one. In a market saturated with heavy-handed collaborations, subtlety reads as confidence. There’s no oversized co-branding, no unnecessary signalling. Just quality product that speaks for itself.
Letting the product lead is ultimately what ties the entire collection together – it doesn’t rely on storytelling as a crutch. The story is already embedded in the garments, in the references, in the history both brands carry. And for MEYBA, it arrives at an interesting moment. The brand sits in a space that many heritage labels aim for but rarely achieve: recognisable without feeling overexposed.
“There’s real heritage there, but it still feels quite fresh to a lot of people,” he says. One audience remembers the 80s and 90s. Another is discovering it through football, fashion, and music now.
Recent moves have helped shape that reintroduction, too. Club partnerships with Leyton Orient F.C., Willem II and SD Ibiza bring MEYBA back onto the pitch, while its presence in music and wider culture extends it beyond traditional football spaces. The Fred Perry collaboration sits neatly within that wider picture.
It also taps into something more timely. As football continues to blur with fashion, the most interesting work isn’t coming from brands trying to force relevance, but from those with a point of view, and the confidence to express it quietly.
This is a collection built on that idea. No gimmicks, no overstatement. Just two brands with a mutual understanding for style and heritage, making a capsule of objectively great apparel. It sounds pretty simple really.
