Icarus Football’s custom kits take center stage this weekend

With every soccer tournament, there’s always a competition beyond the official championship trophy and individual awards like the Golden Boot.

Which team has the best kits?

This summer, 24 national teams in Europe and 16 teams from the Americas have been competing in Euro 2024 and the 2024 Copa América, donning jerseys designed by eight sports apparel brands — giants like Adidas, Nike, Puma and Reebok, along with lesser-known names like Hummel, Joma, Macron and Marathon. 

Far from the Ronaldos and Messis on Fox’s iffy coverage, though, a 7-a-side soccer tournament is set for this weekend in Philly, co-organized by Kensington-based kit designer Icarus Football and recreational soccer league CASA. 

“The goal of the tournament is really to bring the entire community together for a weekend to celebrate soccer,” CASA Executive Director Nolan Bair said. “But it’s not just about soccer. It’s about being together, being part of Philadelphia, traveling to Philadelphia, really showcasing what our city has to offer using soccer as a platform to do that.”

Like previous years, Icarus has designed each team’s kit — 80 in total — just for the tournament, offering players from the Philly area and those traveling from beyond a unique look that will stand out from typical soccer threads long after the football festival is over. 

This design approach isn’t just a one-off for Icarus. It’s part of the brand’s approach to make unique soccer jerseys that represent each team’s identity and stand out, on and off the field, in a way that off-the-rack or catalog alternatives can’t.

Icarus takes flight

Icarus was started in 2017 by Robby Smukler, who grew up sketching soccer kits and crests, incorporating the culture, history and identity of the place or group they were for.

The business initially grew its presence through Philly’s grassroots soccer. With CASA, they offered teams a subsidized price for custom kits. Smukler said that CASA’s goals of inclusivity, accessibility and affordability aligned with Icarus’ own wish to break from the status quo. 

“You want to play in a league that actually gives a sh*t about the players,” Smukler said. “They’re not just trying to take money off you, right? They’re really trying to create services, a community feeling.” 

Bair said that the league’s teams had previously lacked uniformity, with some teams wearing shirts of a similar color and others not even having kits. The partnership worked and has snowballed.

“It was really easy to push their product because he did a great job with the designs,” Bair said. “[The jerseys] were attractive. The lead time, production time wasn’t too bad for teams … and the discount helped too.”

The relationship led to the Icarus Cup in Philly and then expanded to Austin. Icarus’ reach in grassroots soccer has grown to include Atlanta, Austin, Boston and Chicago. It added an office in the U.K. in 2020, where it primarily caters to the LGBTQ+ scene, Smukler said. 

The first professional team Icarus worked with was New York City’s New Amsterdam FC in the National Independent Soccer Association, in the third tier of American soccer. Icarus have since added clubs in Bhutan and Ghana to its portfolio, including 2023–24 Ghana Premier League champions Samartex.

“For us, it’s about giving teams access to a graphic design professional who can help them build a kit of their dreams,” Smukler said.

Icarus also serves Philly’s youth soccer scene, including its neighboring Kensington Soccer Club, where some of the Icarus employees coach. Diego Gallardo is one and he says the kids love getting their custom-designed jerseys.

“We had [the kids] design their away kits and we chose from a bunch of designs,” he said. “So it’s not even just like they get a cool jersey, they get a cool jersey that one of them made. It’s literally theirs.”

Soccer, and more

While there are no plans to break into other sports, Icarus has made jerseys for music acts like Philly’s SNACKTIME and an upcoming one for British rock band Yard Act. Icarus also designs for organizations like non-profit Grassroots Soccer, company retreats, and even bachelor parties — provided the last one gives enough notice, Smukler said.

During our visit to Icarus’ Philly office in Billy Penn Studios (no relation) in Olde Kensington, the shelves, tables, walls and even the floors were covered with boxes and piles of shirts for the tournament and the upcoming youth and rec seasons.

“This is our second place. We were actually in a bigger space before, but we didn’t need all the space,” Smukler said. “Now I’m kind of wishing we maybe stayed there.”

Icarus’ staff of nine — five in the U.S. and four in the U.K. — wouldn’t even fill out a conventional soccer starting lineup. Everyone we spoke with was passionate about soccer, and their workspaces show it, with posters, stickers, figurines and other tchotchkes paying homage to the beautiful game. The Euro round-of-16 game between Austria and Turkey was on a large TV and multiple laptop screens, and our interviews paused whenever goals were scored.

Among the three designers, Smukler says he and design director Jaden Stevenson come up with about 40 to 50 kits a week. 

“I like to go really hard on Icarus Cup designs,” said Stevenson, who designed most of this year’s kits. “It’s some of the most fun work, in my opinion, just because you get to interpret the prompt we give ourselves your own way, and let whatever comes from there.”

Since it began, Icarus has produced around 300,000 jerseys — 10,000 unique designs — for around 4,000 clients, according to Smukler. Around 15 thousand other unique designs exist virtually on the designer’s computers as alternative drafts and concepts. There’s pretty much one factor that gets most designs off the computer onto fabric.

“If the client likes it and the client says, ‘OK, we want this,’ we make it,” Smukler said.

With the Icarus Cup though, those restrictions are lifted. The jerseys are designed and posted and teams can pick one once they’re registered, which creates a first-come, first-served competition to nab the most popular designs.

“It just comes down to the inspiration from a team and using your creativity. We’ve been looking at kits, all of us on the design team, since we were like 3 years old,” Smukler said. “The inspiration is really endless and when you’re able to tap into stuff like geography, history, flags and architecture … you’re able to find inspiration really quickly.”

Artistic blockages happen, but Smukler and Stevenson said that trips outside — to the museum, or browsing the archives of Classic Football Shirts’ website, listening to music and just playing soccer — help them push through.

“I think something like Icarus Cup is where we’re able to kind of break the shackles of working with clients and do designs that are purely based on our own enjoyment,” he said. “That’s why Icarus Cup is really fun for us, because it’s, ‘Hey, let’s design 100-something shirts.’ And we’ll just go through the team and say, ‘Alright, here’s the 80 we’re going to use.’ ”

Smukler said that the artistic inspiration often doesn’t draw from Philly or his Princeton, N.J. roots, but the passion and identity that comes with being a Philly sports fan does. 

“These clubs we work with, they might not be the Philadelphia Eagles or Manchester United. But to these people, this is very important and it hurts when they go to work on Monday and they’ve lost on the weekend,” he said. “That Philadelphia love for your hometown, love for your team, love for your identity. We really want to express that on all the kits.”

WHYY’s Cory Sharber contributed to to this report.