CFDA designers craft one-off footballs for Super Bowl 50

For Super Bowl 50, members of the Council of Fashion Designers of America have come together with the National Football League to design 50 bespoke footballs.

The CFDA + NFL Super Bowl 50 collaboration brings together the likes of Betsey Johnson and Nicole Miller and 48 others to design one-off footballs for charity. The high-fashion pigskins will be unveiled Jan. 20 during an event held at the NFL’s headquarters in New York, ahead of Super Bowl 50 on Sunday, Feb. 7 in Santa Clara, CA.

Touchdown
The 50 participating designers each created a one-of-a-kind football for the occasion. While the theme selected was gold, representative of the Super Bowl’s Golden Anniversary as the sporting event turns 50, designers were given full creative control.

After the preview event on Jan. 20, the footballs will be put on auction on the NFL’s Web site. Proceeds from the auction will benefit the NFL Foundation, with closing bids being placed on Feb. 20, well after Super Bowl 50 crowns a winning team.

Participants include Betsey Johnson, Nicole Miller, Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig of Marchesa, Rachel Zoe, Billy Reid, Melissa Joy Manning, Tanya Taylor, Paul Andrew, Tadashi Shoji, Cynthia Sakai, Todd Snyder and Rachel Roy, among others.

CFDA + Super Bowl 50 football by Tanya Taylor

For the 2014 Super Bowl championship held at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, 48 CFDA designers created bespoke helmets that were then showed in the windows of Bloomingdale’s 59th Street flagship before going on auction (see story).

While the NFL declined to tell WWD how much that auction raised, the league did share that the John Varvatos-designed helmet was a top seller, raising $5,055.