Orlando Pirates has extended its institutional footprint beyond the pitch, becoming the first Premier Soccer League club to stage a runway show at South African Fashion Week, an event held on 24 October at The Forum in Johannesburg’s Hyde Park area. The club used the platform to present its third kit for the 2026/27 season, a decision that positions one of South Africa’s most established football institutions within the country’s creative and commercial industries. TimesLIVE reported the details of the presentation, and further coverage is available at https://ua.news/en/sport/orlando-pairets-predstaviv-tretiu-formu-na-tizhni-modi-par-timeslive.
The show, titled From Field To Fashion, was structured as a collaboration between the club and four South African designer brands: Nao Serati, Good Good Good, Yona and David Tlale. The new Adidas jersey was paired with designer clothing on the runway, an arrangement that places the club’s commercial partners and the participating design houses within a single, coordinated project. For the designers involved, the event offered access to a new audience, a point made by Lucilla Booyzen, founder of South African Fashion Week, who said that bringing art and sport together on the runway creates an opportunity to tell South African stories and present designers’ work more widely.
The kit itself is a limited-edition release in burgundy and orange, with purple and red accents. According to the club’s framing of the design, it draws on the landscapes of Soweto, on the resilience and character associated with the club, and on the generations that have shaped its identity since 1937. The presentation also incorporated influences of pantsula culture and streetwear, alongside contrasting prints and modular elements, signals of how the club’s leadership is choosing to represent its heritage to a broader public.
A notable feature of the event was the participation of former Orlando Pirates players, figures whose long association with the club lent institutional weight to the occasion. Those who appeared on the runway included Christian Derbisher, Happy Jele, Andre de Jong, Innocent Maela, Fortune Makaringe, Zoë Mnyepau, Brighton Mhlongo, Linda Mntambo, Sebastian Pedersen and Neo Rapoo. Their presence underscored that the project was framed not merely as a product launch but as a statement about the club’s continuity and identity, presented through people who have carried that identity on the field.
From an institutional standpoint, the move raises questions about how football clubs manage their brands and the mandates under which such partnerships operate. A Premier Soccer League club staging a show at a national fashion week represents a deliberate decision by the club’s leadership to enter a commercial and cultural space traditionally reserved for the design industry. The collaboration with Adidas, the four named design houses and the fashion week’s organizers suggests a coordinated set of agreements, each with its own commercial and reputational stakes. How transparently such arrangements are structured, and how they are accounted for within the club’s broader operations, is a matter the club has not detailed publicly; what is known is the outcome, a limited-edition kit and a first-of-its-kind runway appearance for the league.
For South African Fashion Week, the inclusion of a football club reflects a decision by its own leadership to widen the event’s scope. Booyzen’s remarks indicate that the organizers viewed the crossover as a way to extend the reach of South African design. Whether the model proves durable, and whether other league clubs follow Orlando Pirates’ example, will depend on how the commercial and cultural returns of this first attempt are assessed. For now, the club has set a precedent within the Premier Soccer League, and the 2026/27 third kit stands as the visible product of that decision.