A conversation with Felicia Pennant of SEASON zine
Creating a platform for female fans
This is the second edition of a series of conversations with football creators by Tap In, a dashboard guide to world football’s essential matches.
Felicia Pennant is the editor of SEASON zine, a cross between a football fanzine and a fashion magazine with an ethos to champion female fashion and football fans first.
What’s the origin story of SEASON? SEASON is the combination of my two main interests. I work in fashion and I’ve have been a huge Chelsea FC fan since 2004. I went to Central Saint Martins [one of the world’s top fashion schools] and wrote my thesis on footballers, metrosexuality, and suits. While researching my thesis, I came across a really brilliant book called The Fashion of Football by Paulo Hewitt and Mark Baxter. It chronicled the style, fashion trends, and the importance of clothing to footballers and fans from the 1960s until the early noughties. However I realized there were no women in it and I was pretty sure there were female fans at that point. In a lot of the other discourse, women were curiously absent as well so, being a football fan very into fashion myself, I thought “Why don’t I do something about that?”
I was also meeting cool and creative women who were also into football. We are a sizable minority but we don’t really get a voice or platform to share how we engage with the modern game and express our support through style and dress. SEASON is a platform for that.
It’s an independent publication that is published twice a year and comes with a set of original football stickers. I started doing this myself then brought Natalie Doto aboard as graphic designer and various collaborators I found on Instagram and by word of mouth. The team has since grown to five amazing core members — Sian Rowe (features and social media), Manda Wilks (events), Amber Crawford (website and newsletter), Nathan Matthews (creative design) and Joanna Laskus (press and marketing) — beside myself who work on SEASON around full time jobs and other projects. It’s about sharing women’s experiences, to make us visible in the football landscape, so we can empower women; but being honest, playful and intelligent about it and not sexualized. We also acknowledge the interplay between fashion and football as well and highlight issues that need to change.
Do you feel the intersection of football and fashion has always been there, and is there just more visibility to it now? I think it’s always been there. People explore their fandom through dress in different ways. Some people love to wear a replica jersey, whereas other people would rather stick with the colors and do it a little more subtly.
In football fan history, the 1980s casuals used fashion as a tool to express their fandom. Liverpool fans who went to Europe to support their team picked up designer clothes while there. Then you have players, like David Beckham who are openly experimental (remember the sarong) or David James who modelled for Armani, that aren’t shy to admit that they are into fashion. That’s made the connection between fashion and football more visible in popular culture.
Brands are picking up on this and creating more interesting things. Now you have Nike and Adidas collaborating with fashion designers and footballers alike because they understand the influence footballers have over what people buy.
The first issue I read was the Paris issue. It felt different. It felt honest and fresh. Do you think that uniqueness is due to the concept itself or that it’s a magazine told by a voice that we don’t hear often enough? That’s exactly the point. There are a lot of women who are fans, but we’re not very represented. To have a proper understanding of football culture today in my opinion, you have to think about and include women who engage in a range of ways. SEASON, in it’s own way, is trying to do that. By saying, “Hi, we’re here. We have a genuine interest. It’s not just because my boyfriend’s into football or my dad’s into football.”
And that’s not to say that some of the more male-orientated publications aren’t featuring women. They are, but it’s not as a focus or comes across as an afterthought. Sometimes just imagery alone, so you don’t actually hear what they think.
While there are wonderful women involved in SEASON, plenty of men that think it’s great too. I’ll get emails saying, “I’m going to buy this for my girlfriend/daughter to have her feel like it’s cool to be a fan.” And that’s awesome!
I just love the fact that football transcends everything. Through football you can have an in-depth conversation with anyone regardless of language, race or religion. You can watch together, cheer together, cry and be full of emotion together. No other sport brings people worldwide together like that.
I remember scrolling through This Fan Girl and being struck by the power of it. The narrative shouldn’t be that football is growing among female fans, it’s that it’s there, it just isn’t covered. One in four fans attending league matches are female, according to official stats. I know both Amy and Laura who run This Fan Girl. It’s so great because it’s about raising visibility and awareness to the point where you really can’t ignore female fan. Everything is aligning, there’s loads of women doing things now to raise that awareness. Maybe we just don’t want to be ignored anymore. Especially when I am consuming and engaging in the game in a very similar way to the man sitting next to me. Everything is geared toward him, even though I’m just as much of a fan as he is, and I probably spend the same amount of money as he does. The only difference is our gender. Progress is happening, it’s just maybe slower than we’d like.
We’re still at a place where there’s a disconnect between the visibility of the issues surrounding women’s football and the number of people watching women’s football. You see interest in women’s football growing more and more, but I see that as the next big hurdle. Exactly, getting actual fans. A big part of that is building personalities for the players. That’s a big thing within the men’s game. You’re not just seeing them in a football context, but also their lifestyle, who they are as people. As a fan, you like to read someone’s interview, know about their life outside of the game. What they like and dislike so you can really get a sense of a person. At the moment [female] English players don’t get that kind of coverage. It’s easy to speculate or create a stereotype if you don’t truly know what that person is about.
I think once you build personalities for the individual players, it’s easier to choose your favorite player and invest in the women’s game overall.
What has surprised you since starting SEASON? How quickly people have embraced it, actually, beyond my wonderful core team. When we’ve done an event it’s been almost an even split between girls and guys there.
A couple of weeks back someone emailed me and said his daughter was having a hard time at school. He wanted her to be empowered and to have female role models, so he got her a copy of SEASON. Things like that are humbling and increase my motivation to do this. You have your project and think people may like it, but you’re so close to it. You never know what reactions you’ll get. When you get great reactions like that it’s worth all the tears and triumphs. It’s a complete labor of love.
You can pick up the latest issue of SEASON zine on their website and at stockists worldwide.
