The D.I.Y. Empire of Kristin Juszczyk
The New York Times
She made her own clothes to wear at her husband’s football games. Now she’s dressing the winner of the Indy 500.
This year’s Super Bowl was many things to Kristin Juszczyk.
It was a crushing loss for her husband’s team, the San Francisco 49ers. But it was also the culmination of weeks of frenzied interest in the clothes she made by hand and wore to N.F.L. games. (The Super Bowl happened to take place on her 30th birthday, too.)
“This really all started as a hobby for me,” said Ms. Juszczyk, whose hobby — repurposing vintage team gear into one-off pieces — eventually made global headlines.
From early January to mid-February (or the N.F.L. playoff season, roughly), her Instagram following grew by one million people. Taylor Swift and Simone Biles wore puffer jackets designed by Ms. Juszczyk while supporting their football-playing partners. (Her husband is Kyle Juszczyk, a 49ers fullback.) She signed a licensing deal with the N.F.L., which allowed her to use the league’s logos on her clothing.
Ms. Juszczyk has spent the ensuing months figuring out how to scale her business so that she’s not just taking commissions from fellow WAGs and famous fans — her “bread and butter,” she said — but also making things that any fan can buy and wear.
She has also expanded into other sports; she designed a vest for the basketball player Caitlin Clark, for example. This weekend, the winner of the Indy 500 will be given one of Ms. Juszczyk’s jackets. So will the Indy 500’s national anthem singer, Jordin Sparks.
