‘Go To An Arsenal Game, The Fashion Is Great’: Leah Williamson Swaps Football For The Front Row.

‘Go To An Arsenal Game, The Fashion Is Great’: Leah Williamson Swaps Football For The Front Row.

 

 

 

When Leah Williamson jokes, “Go to an Arsenal game, the fashion is great,” she says it with the authority of someone who has spent her life in red and white. Best known as the composed captain who led the England women’s national football team to historic glory at UEFA Women’s Euro 2022, Williamson is now proving her influence stretches well beyond the pitch. This season, she has swapped muddy boots for the polished floors of fashion week, taking her place on the front row with the same poise she brings to a back line.

For Williamson, the connection between football and fashion feels natural. At Arsenal W.F.C., style has long been woven into the club’s identity. Matchdays in north London are not just about tactics and trophies; they’re a showcase of personal expression. Supporters arrive in vintage shirts, reworked scarves and carefully curated streetwear. “There’s creativity in the stands,” Williamson has suggested in interviews. “People show who they are through what they wear.”

It is that self-expression that has drawn her towards fashion’s inner circle. Attending London Fashion Week, Williamson cuts a striking figure: sharp tailoring one day, relaxed oversized silhouettes the next. Designers have begun to recognize the commercial and cultural power of women’s sport, and Williamson — articulate, grounded and unmistakably modern — embodies that shift. She represents a generation of athletes who are as comfortable discussing hemlines as high presses.

Her fashion presence is not about abandoning football, but reframing it. For decades, female athletes were boxed into narrow stereotypes. Now, players like Williamson challenge outdated ideas of what strength looks like. She can marshal a defense at the Emirates and later sit front row in sculptural suiting, and neither role feels contradictory. Instead, each amplifies the other.

That duality mirrors the rise of women’s football itself. Since the Lionesses’ triumph in 2022, visibility has soared. Stadium attendances have broken records, commercial partnerships have expanded, and players’ personalities are increasingly part of the sport’s appeal. Williamson understands that visibility brings opportunity — and responsibility. By stepping into fashion spaces, she opens doors for broader representation of sportswomen in mainstream culture.

There is also something distinctly Arsenal about it. The club’s north London home has always blended sport and style, from terrace culture to modern streetwear collaborations. To attend a match there is to witness a sea of red interpreted a hundred different ways. Williamson’s comment about the fashion at Arsenal games is only half in jest; it speaks to a community that treats football as both competition and canvas.

As she navigates recovery from injury and plots her return to full fitness, Williamson’s off-pitch ventures keep her in the public eye. Yet nothing suggests her priorities have shifted. Football remains her first love. The front row is an extension of her personality, not an escape from the game.

In many ways, Williamson’s journey from grass to gloss captures a cultural moment. Women’s sport is no longer confined to the back pages. Its stars sit at the intersection of athletic excellence and creative influence. And if you want proof that football and fashion now share the same stage, you could do worse than take her advice: go to an Arsenal game. The football is compelling — and apparently, the fashion is great too.