Travis Kelce is collaborating with MAGA’s new favorite denim company American Eagle, a month after Sydney Sweeney’s “Great Jeans” ad sparked backlash.
Kelce’s clothing and lifestyle brand Tru Colors teamed up with American Eagle, Kelce and the company announced Wednesday, for a limited edition clothing line modeled by basketball player Kiyan Anthony, Olympic gymnast Suni Lee, and more athlete-friends of Kelce’s across various sports.
“More than a year in the making,” the press release stresses, “AE x Tru Kolors by Travis Kelce merges fashion, sports and culture.” The announcement comes just one day after his engagement to Taylor Swift went public.
Noting that the brand team-up originated a year ago is helpful for separating the apolitical persona of the football player from MAGA’s embrace of Sweeney after her collaboration with the company was accused of pushing “eugenics” and “Nazi propaganda.”
“I’ve had to keep my excitement about this collab under wraps for nearly a year,” Kelce’s statement also reads, repeating the timeline.
The tagline for Sweeney’s campaign, “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans,” sometimes shown with the word “jeans” crossed out and replaced with “genes,” raised the eyebrows of some social media commenters who surmised the ads were emphasizing her blonde hair, blue-eyed appearance.
The online reaction became a matter of national news when MAGA supporters and ultimately Donald Trump, egged on by constant Fox News coverage, came to Sweeney’s defense. While Sweeney never commented on the backlash and was even more fully embraced by the alt-right after she was revealed to be a registered Republican, American Eagle tried to remain above the fray by insisting the campaign “is and always was about the jeans.”
Kelce’s collaboration with the company is uniquely timed to cash in on fan excitement about his and Swift‘s engagement, which the two stars announced on Instagram Tuesday. Swift is also promoting a new album.
“It was an awesome opportunity to team up with an established brand where both sides were excited to truly collaborate on every decision in the design and creative process that brought the ‘AE x TK’ collection to life,” the footballer also says in the release announcement Wednesday. American Eagle executive Jennifer Foyle adds that Kelce and the company were “destined to collaborate.”
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