The London Lions, a British professional basketball team based in Stratford (East London) and who compete in the British Basketball League, partnered with French based football team Red Star FC’s Youth Academy for a cross channel jersey design workshop carried out with Hard in the Paint Founder Jermaine Bates.
The alliance between the London hoops side and the Parisian football club was brought to life on 28 October when the Lions hosted Red Star FC’s Youth Academy and Red Star LAB (the club’s cultural and artistic wing) during the final leg of the French football team’s tour of the English capital city.
Along with nine player and coach ‘supervisors’, a team of four girls and eight boys from Red Star Academy’s Under 15 squads were chosen to travel to London from their home in the Paris suburb Saint-Ouen tki take part in a design workshop to create unique, personal London Lions jerseys under the guidance of Hard in the Paint Founder and renowned creative Jermaine Bates.
The workshop saw the Red Star Academy players tasked with creating their personal version of the London Lions jersey. All 12 players were each given a white Lions home shirt to paint on with red Star’s signature green and red colours.
The young footballer, artist, designers were guided by designer Bates whom himself established his professional reputation by creating custom football shirts for Premier League players.
No custom jersey design was the same and each young player incorporated individual perspectives, personal style and spontaneous painting techniques spanning images, numbers, words and ideas. Interestingly, several of the designs had one common feature – the number ’93 / 9-3’ – the first part of their home Saint-Ouen area Paris postcode.
The dual-code, dual-club workshop was promoted across both team’s social channels.
Last Friday we hosted the young people from #RedStarLab – the cultural and artistic wing of @RedStarFC that allows young athletes to explore their creative side!
It was amazing to have you with us @RedStarFC!#RedStarLABinLondon #wearelondon pic.twitter.com/tIETkRzeJV
— London Lions (@LondonLions) November 4, 2022
“We’re trying to get our young players to open their eyes. One of our sayings is ‘work the body, feed the mind’. Feeding the mind is what they’re doing right now – the more the mind is creative, the better you are at football, it’s an additional bonus. The more you become creative, the more you will become cultivated,” outlined Red Star FC Creative Manager (and former Manchester United and West Ham star) David Bellion.
“Football is very important, we tell our players to try your best – but your life should not be defined by football,” Bellion continued. “Maybe one of our players will be the marketing person at the London Lions in the future, maybe one will be the next Communications Director at Red Star and another might be the future Club Chairperson.”
Hand in the Paint Founder Jermains Bates added: “It was nice to hear a little about where they and their inspirations came from. There were a few designs that really stood out. I loved how quite a few of them felt the need to make reference to their distinct ’93’, and there were some really cool ways that they incorporated Red Star-inspired designs with the London Lions’ jerseys.”
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Red Star LAB was created back in 2008 by Club President and film director Patrice Haddad to enable and support the club’s youth players to ‘find and explore their creative passions’ through a variety of different projects.
Red Star FC, despite its professional football pyramid position in the Championnat National French third tier, is one of European football’s most innovative teams when it comes to fan-first, authentic and community-focused advertising, communication and marketing.
Its notable recent initiatives include the introduction of ‘Pass-Passe’ to ease entry into its Bauer stadium and enable supporters to show their allegiance to the team as well as their Covid-19 vaccine passport, as well as the pandemic-related game day audio experience called ‘Stadium Filled’ and its 2019 ‘Google StreetView Look Book Shirt Launch’.
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