Footballer and Gospel Estudios founder Hector Bellerín: ‘’Fashion is losing its essence, especially with the so-called sustainable brands’’

In an interview with NSS Sports, the footballer of Real Betis looked back on the time he started getting into fashion. ‘’When I started going to fashion shows or turning up at London Fashion Week, there was nobody doing it. Back then, I never thought that football would ever play a role in fashion. If you had told me how intertwined they have become, I’d never have believed it.’’

‘’If someone recommended me to a fashion brand for a collaboration, they’d immediately say: Oh no, he’s a footballer’’

‘’I’d go to these fashion shows and people would say: ‘What do you mean you’re a footballer? What’s a footballer doing here? You don’t dress that badly for a footballer’. There were always comments like that, and if someone recommended me to a fashion brand for a collaboration, they’d immediately say: ‘Oh no, he’s a footballer’,’’ Bellerín explained. 

Now, the world has changed and fashion brands are more eager than ever to work with footballers. But Bellerín wasn’t trying to immerge the two worlds together. ‘’If I’m honest, I didn’t think about it. I went to the fashion shows because I was looking forward to meeting people, seeing friends who worked there, it was part of something I enjoyed, so it felt natural to me. Everything that happened afterwards was very organic.’’ 

Gospel Estudios

Bellerín recently founded the fashion brand Gospel Estudios together with a collective of creative people. ‘’I didn’t want to make a clothing brand with just my name,’’ says Bellerín to NSS Sports. ‘’And I’ve never advertised that the brand is just mine. I always talk about our collective, because for me, everything I know about clothing is in it, but it’s the sum of all the knowledge of the people in it.’’

 

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‘’Horacio and I started the project when we were in quarantine, and at that time I had already done a few projects with fashion brands. My last collaboration with H&M went very well and have me the confidence to explore what I could do.’’ 

The passion for fashion lies in Bellerín’s family as his mother always worked in fashion. Growing up the footballer developed a passion for the art of making clothes. ‘’I’ve always loved clothes and the self-expression they give you. For me, it has always been an art and a means of reaching other people.’’ 

More than a fashion brand

But Gospel Estudios isn’t your average fashion brand, nor does Bellerín want it to be. ‘’Fashion is losing its essence, especially with the so-called sustainable brands. They all seem to me to be very boring and just trying to do the next big thing, and then another and another.’’

‘’We feel influenced by so many experiences during the creation process, we started with a study of what interests us and not only in terms of fashion but also in terms of food, music and different types of art,’’ says Bellerín about Gospel Estudios. ‘’And we feel very connected to our roots.’’

‘’Our accountants think we’re crazy, but that’s exactly what we are’’

When buying a piece of clothing at the website of Gospel Estudios, you quickly notice that it isn’t your ordinary brand and that sales aren’t the priority. ‘’Our website is not just a shop, it’s a handbook of Spanish history. And when you try to buy something, you get a message asking you if you really need the item. Our accountants think we’re crazy, but that’s exactly what we are. We can’t talk about making our relationship with fashion more sustainable and then throw clothes at your feet. We want people to know that when they buy Gospel Estudios, they’re making a contract with us saying: I’m going to take care of this product and give it the purpose it’s meant for.’’

 

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Active mind

It goes to show that everything Bellerín does in life, is taken seriously. ‘’I think that’s one of the things that’s ingrained in my personality, and when I find something interesting, I want to know everything about it. When I started to be interested in fashion, I read books and enrolled in different courses. I wanted to learn. I wanted to know. For example, I learnt to draw in 3D for no reason, just because there was a new tool and I knew I could create things with it. And I learnt, you know, I took courses in photography, in anything that I liked. And an active mind is something important to me in my life. And that gave me the opportunity to achieve the results that I have now.’’