GQ and Bode are joining forces to host the GQ Bowl, a fashion event at the intersection of sports, style and culture ahead of the biggest weekend in American football.
On Feb. 7, two days before Super Bowl Sunday, the menswear publication and American designer will be staging a fashion show at Hotel Peter & Paul in New Orleans to celebrate the increasingly intertwined worlds of fashion and sport.
Originally known for the menswear collections she has assembled by repurposing antique fabrics since 2016, designer Emily Adams Bode Aujla launched her first womenswear collection at Paris Fashion Week in January 2023.
The following year, Bode Aujla released her first sportswear-inspired line, Bode Recreation, using fabrics that are easier to wear and wash, featuring pieces like tennis skirts, hockey jerseys and sweaters embroidered with golf, skiing and tennis motifs. With Bode Rec., the brand also released a collaboration with Nike in April, featuring a reissue of the sneaker brand’s 1970s Astrograbber shoe, as well as cross-country running pinnies, track jackets and thermals. Its sportswear saw instant popularity, with its football jerseys selling out in two days.
For the February show, Bode Aujla told The Business of Fashion she took inspiration from her father, who played football in high school and college, as well as the city of New Orleans.
“There’s a throughline with the football narrative, but largely, what was so inspiring, we dove into this idea of parade culture, festival culture, homecoming parades … and New Orleans has such a huge celebration of that culture,” she said.
The show will present the 2025 Bode Rec collection of both menswear and womenswear, donned by models, athletes and friends of both the fashion house and publication. The runway show will be bookended by a livestreamed red carpet, stadium-inspired tunnel walk and after-party, all held in various locations throughout the hotel.
This isn’t GQ Sports’s first time partaking in Super Bowl weekend. In 2024, GQ global editorial director and editor-in-chief of American GQ Will Welch co-hosted a soirée presented by Farfetch alongside Houston Texans player Stefon Diggs ahead of the big game in Las Vegas.
“The Super Bowl is such an American event, and so I thought it would only make sense to partner … with an American designer,” Welch said.
This all comes at a time when the convergence of fashion and sport is greater than ever. While much of the recent overlap started with internet sleuths tracking Taylor Swift’s outfits at boyfriend Travis Kelce’s games for the Kansas City Chiefs, several designers and brands have taken to partnering directly with the National Football League to capitalise on the buzz.
Kristin Juszczyk, whose husband Kyle Juszczyk is the fullback for the San Francisco 49ers, and Skims co-founder Emma Grede, launched Off Season in January with an initial collection of puffer jackets, coats and vests for five NFL teams. In October, Veronica Beard also partnered with the NFL on a line of 32 blazers inspired by the brand’s Dickey Jacket.
“The audience is different for this, we’re not creating a show just for editors,” Bode Aujla said. “Throughout history, the idea of who’s at the runway has changed. This is a new iteration that has a lot to do with the people in and around sports and athletics. Obviously there’s a major crossover.”