The NFL Hall of Fashion is a Capitalist Insult to Women

In a chic midtown gallery space, a woman wears what looks like a prayer shawl with a New York Giants logo across the back. A pair of Green Bay Packers high heels with leopard print lining are neatly arranged on display—a little ensemble which screams "insane person." A model poses on a platform framed by carefully curated lighting. She wears a stretched Giants shirt and a silver dress that resembles half of a gigantic onion. Another model is done up in a Saints jacket with rolled-up sleeves and a tight, full-length dress that could double for Little Mermaid cosplay.

I am at the NFL Hall of Fashion, which, inexplicably, is precisely what it sounds like. The message: wear NFL shit all the time. When you go to work, wear your favorite team shirt regardless of what else you're wearing. Going shopping? Wear tailored sweatpants, which I now know is not an oxymoron. Looking to walk the fine line between dignified businessman and Mike Ditka? Wear a sweater vest underneath your open suit jacket and instantly age 40 years.

These are the kinds of ingenious fashion solutions renowned stylist Phillip Bloch and his team have concocted to expand NFL branding into the non-Sunday days of the week. "We got a going to the club look, we got a going to the office look, we got a little bit of everything," Bloch told several style reporters on the red carpet. (There was a red carpet.) Bloch was hired to make it socially acceptable for people to wear NFL logos 24/7/365 for a very simple reason: the more often it's cool to wear NFL logos, the more money the NFL makes.

As of 2010, merchandising accounted for $263 million of the league's annual revenue, but that was prior to Nike's $220 million per year licensing deal, which is roughly eight times richer on an annual basis than the league's previous deal with Reebok. Still, the NFL sees lots of room for growth in the apparel market.

In the five minutes I was within earshot, I heard Bloch say that 45 percent of NFL fans are women three separate times. The NFL is positively obsessed with this statistic, partly because it reflects an astoundingly successful half-decade of marketing efforts, but also because repeating it ad nauseum emphasizes the revenue potential therein to advertisers. After several years of their "shrink it and pink it" women's apparel strategy—a term used by NFL executives—the NFL is starting to realize some women don't want to wear pink.

But none of this is especially new. The NFL announced a similar initiative in 2011, dubbed the Style Lounge, where women could "shop for the newest gear made just for women, talk to a professional stylist about how to create their own team look, listen to music by an on-site DJ, enjoy complimentary team manicures." You know, shop, talk about shopping, and get their nails done, the rich male executive's perception of a woman's interests.

However, this event wasn't just about getting women to buy more NFL gear. They want men, too. One mannequin was adorned with the baffling combination of tie, sweatpants, and baseball hat, which can only be pulled off by a professional athlete or unemployed artist. One picture showed Colin Kaepernick with a jacket draped over his shoulders and a Niners beanie resting gently on his head, alerting men to the existence of hats.

They also gave out style guides, which featured a sad Steelers fan wearing a fancy sweatshirt and a man wearing a backwards hat while scratching his chin as if to say "my chin itches." The whole style guide reads like an Introduction To Clothes, providing useful tips such as jackets go over shirts and some sweatshirts have zippers and hoods.

Seeking style advice from the NFL is like asking your kids what their allowance should be: the answer is not going to be good for you. Just like your kids setting their own rates, the NFL is going to posit something absurd like "it's always OK to wear team logos," and hope you're ignorant enough to accept their pretense. To admit it's sometimes not appropriate to wear NFL gear is to essentially turn down money, which we all know the NFL isn't keen on doing.

As I meandered alongside mannequins in form-fitting apparel, NFL Senior Vice President of Consumer Products Leo Cane took the microphone and gave a brief speech. "We know it's been a tough week for everyone in the NFL family, and we are certainly focused on doing much better," he told the packed studio space. Even though he wasn't specific, we all knew to what he was referring and the predominantly female crowd grew quiet.

Roger Goodell reportedly said he wants to "be a leader in the domestic violence space." Meanwhile, back on the red carpet, supermodel Erin Heatherton said that she considers her game day attire to be a key element of her fan individuality. At best, an NFL event emphasizing female individualism employed a healthy dose of cognitive dissonance regarding its employees' rampant abuse of women. Instructing women to buy more of your product while simultaneously devaluing their safety is a master class in capitalist hypocrisy. Incidentally, it is also a terrible marketing strategy. By paying to host such an event, the NFL Hall of Fashion implicitly reinforces the idea that the NFL only wants to occupy the "domestic violence space" so women will continue to give it money at an increasing rate.

After issuing his vow, Cane then introduced Bloch, who gave a rambunctious speech about how much he loves football. "It's just such an exciting thing to be a part of the NFL. In good times, bad times, whatever anybody says, I love this game, I love the NFL." The crowd erupted once again. It was, after all, time to sell some clothes.