Studs Up

Update: Giveaway is on Monday now instead!
Note: On Wednesday I’ll be partnering with Pelé Sports to give away each of the items from this review (new ones, not the ones I’ve had my grubby fingers all over) so make sure to fan SU on Facebook or follow me on Twitter for the announcement.

I first came across Pelé Sports a few months ago, I don’t remember exactly how but I do remember not thinking too much about it. After all, Pelé comes up pretty often these days and it wasn’t too long ago that he popped up back with the NY Cosmos so seeing the Pele name appearing on new projects or businesses isn’t particularly shocking. I assumed he had licensed out his name to pop on a couple t-shirts and be done with it.

But a few weeks ago the lads at Pelé Sports got in touch to try and explain more about what they were trying to do, and the plan was much more ambitious than my sweeping initial assumptions had led me to believe. The brand had been fleshed out both wide and deep, with three core lines Performance, Pelada (for urban football) and Pelé Story (fashion). There were t-shirts, but also sweaters, hoodies, base layers, shorts, boots, zip ups and more. More importantly, each seemed to have a fair amount of detail.

Pelé Sports is a new company, launching just before the last World Cup but clearly a lot had been invested in product development and trying to build a backstory to the brand. The former was immediately clear, the latter not quite as much. I’ll get into that more as I dig into the products themselves. After all, for all the talk of the Pele name and ambitious branding if the products weren’t any good then Pele Sports runs the risk of being resigned to the pile of licensed novelty items.

They offered some items for review, and I went with the Hooded Sweatshirt (Pelada), the Side Vent Sweatshirt, and a simple Grandmaster Logo Tee.

At a glance…

The front design was a mixture of screen printing and what appeared to be felt (the Pele logo and “Mind Over Matter” typography.

This is holding up the hood in front o a window, the material is quite thin and lightweight. Nothing wrong with that, just something to keep that in mind.

The Grandmaster Tee features a sort of gold foil finish to the design and typography.

Right out the packaging, it was obvious that time and money wasn’t just spent on broadening the product line but on the individual quality of each piece. From small details to the quality of the material, these were clearly items of a high workmanship. The material of the hoodie and sweatshirt was lightweight and thin, which is good/bad depending on where and how you plan to use them, but the material was soft and felt of a good quality.

As I mentioned, the detailing was kinda nuts. There were tags and logos everywhere which means your fondness for Pele isn’t the only part in your decision but a stylistic one as well. That’s a good thing for a new brand as they’ve set their stall out and given their products their own personality and character.

Here are some of the imagery and small detailing that cover the Pelé Sports items (and in the case of the tags, are double-sided with even more logos). Personally I’d rather have less logos from a purely aesthetic standpoint but I understand and appreciate the attempt to bring elements of Pelé to each item beyond his name. My only issue was you don’t really have any idea what they mean (other than the football which… I get.) In talking to Pelé Sports they said that each represents something from Pelé’s history but it’s not explained on the PS website or in any documentation or tags that arrived with the product. So if any of you guys are massive Pele lore buffs and can fill me in, that’d be great.

The “Side Vent Sweatshirt” was one I was particularly interested in, as I wasn’t really sure what it was about. Turns out, it’s exactly what it sounds like. Zips run up the sideseams of the sweatshirt that allow unzip to open up the top like a bib, presumably for ventilation and ease of removal.

An interesting touch you don’t see too often. Doubt I’ll wear it out, but  I’ll definitely give this a whirl as a training top for my next Sunday League match.

Overall, it’s a good start for Pele Sports. The level of quality and design was surprising as far as a licensed product and I’ll be especially curious to try out the boots when they’re available as there’s apparently a significant tech play being made. The brand story appears to dig deep into Pele lore but they probably need to do a better job of communicating that beyond seemingly abstract logos. I’m a sucker for a good product or brand story but right now if I wore my Pele gear out and someone asked me what the plethora of icons meant, I’d love to tell them but I simply don’t know.

But that can be worked on. The product is the foundation and the quality, workmanship and attention to detail can’t be argued with. I’m excited to see what else is to come as the brand gets its legs.