Footballer fashion at Paris menswear

Who said football and fashion made an unlikely match? A Brazilian designer set out to prove the opposite in Paris Friday with a menswear line looking ahead to the 2014 World Cup in his home country.

AFP/ François Guillot

Paris-based Gustavo Lins teamed up with a Brazilian sportswear brand, Penalty, to create a luxury menswear line for next spring-summer full of nods to the football galaxy.

"It's a bridge between the sartorial world of tailoring here in Europe and something more relaxed, it blends hard and soft, masculine and feminine," the designer told AFP after the show in a courtyard in Paris' Marais district.

Formal jackets or super-fine sweaters in acid hues were paired with tracksuit-style pants - cut from fine cotton jersey - or slinky pants with a drawstring waist for a look at once athletic and luxurious.

For evening a tuxedo was reworked with tracksuit pants complete with black satin stripe, above black-and-white leather sneakers.

Lins, who says he designs with real men in mind, used the swirled pattern of a football as the motif for a T-shirt, one of the items to be offered as a part of a separate, sportier capsule collection co-branded with Penalty.