\u201cIt started with us finding jackets from Zara,\u201d says Lauren Kyle McDavid. \u201cI would go on my Adobe InDesign and design something on the mock-up of the jacket and send it to the local embroiderer here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kyle McDavid, wife of Oilers captain and NHL star Connor McDavid<\/a>, runs the design and fabrication process of Edmonton\u2019s WAGs jackets, worn by players\u2019 wives and girlfriends. The tradition, Kyle McDavid tells Front Office Sports, has come a long way. This year, she created custom blue-suede barn jackets with a woven leather intrecciato collar, similar to the hallmark of Italian luxury fashion house Bottega Veneta.\u00a0<\/p>\n WAGs jackets are a tradition for the Stanley Cup playoffs and other special events like the NHL\u2019s Winter Classic<\/a> and Stadium Series. Each garment often showcases the team\u2019s logo and, crucially, the last name and number of the WAG\u2019s significant other. (Kids sometimes get their own looks<\/a>, too.) And although these garments aren\u2019t exclusive to hockey, during the postseason, the designs are a big fan draw across social media for adulation\u2014and runway-esque analysis<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI think culture outside of sports is in general becoming more popular in every sport. I would say we\u2019re starting to see a shift of not just the players, but also their lifestyle, their family, and what their social life looks like,\u201d says Kyle McDavid. This year was the first she made the Oilers WAGs jackets under her unisex sportswear apparel brand label, Sports Club Atelier, which she started in December 2024. The brand is a line of limited-edition Oilers gear\u2014jackets, sweaters, and other accessories such as baseball caps and hair clips. The WAGs jackets, however, are fully custom.<\/p>\n This year, Kyle McDavid also created the jackets for the Jets, Stars, and Golden Knights\u2014all of which, alongside the Oilers, made it through the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. She had to decline other teams\u2019 requests because she was at capacity with the designs, which she says take about two weeks from conception to final product.\u00a0<\/p>\n She says pricing can shoot up from express shipping to hit the short timeline. \u201cWe make up our costs and then add a little margin for that. But I feel that we\u2019re charging a very reasonable cost for them; it\u2019s not a premium right now.\u201d (Kyle McDavid declined to provide specific pricing information.) She works with manufacturers in China, Pakistan, and Portugal and says she\u2019s already looking to expand her sourcing next season for quality and customization.<\/p>\n Hillary Trocheck thinks the fan interest around the outfits was driven in part by Kristin Juszczyk, who designed a custom Kansas City Chiefs jacket for Taylor Swift<\/a> last year (Swift\u2019s boyfriend is Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce). Trocheck, whose husband, Vincent, plays for the Rangers, launched her own clothing brand, Statement Threads Shop, in April 2024. She carries a few items ready-made, including jackets, but most of her work focuses on custom pieces.<\/p>\n The Rangers didn\u2019t make the postseason this year, but Trocheck designed playoff sweaters for the Ottawa Senators<\/a>. She sources from retailers including Zara and H&M, and then adds bespoke details. She offers non-custom versions for both adults and kids on the Statement Threads online shop, for $275 and $250, respectively. She also designed the Team USA jackets for 4 Nations Face-Off<\/a>: custom Alo Yoga bomber jackets with the names and numbers of each player.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ladies came to me with a design idea, and I had somebody help me digitally, and then we went back and forth on a couple of iterations,\u201d she tells FOS. Usually, she says, the process doesn\u2019t start until teams clinch playoff spots. For Ottawa\u2019s sweaters, she spent more than an hour with a commercial-grade embroidery machine on each of the 36 pieces. All in all, her raw materials cost $50 and she sold each for $200.<\/p>\n Although the $4 billion women\u2019s sports merch market<\/a> is expanding, WAGs items live in their own realm\u2014they\u2019re not available for purchase, so instead create a kind of aspirational, almost voyeuristic social media sensation.<\/p>\n \u201cLadies and gentlemen, the best time of the year is here, and that is playoffs,\u201d one TikTok user posted<\/a> in April. \u201cIt is not because of the game. It\u2019s because of the jackets.\u201d<\/p>\n