Megan Rapione for Loewe. Courtesy of Loewe
The year 2019 was loaded with success and progress for the soccer star and activist Megan Rapinoe. In addition to driving the United States Women’s National soccer team to victory at FIFA 2019 Women’s World Cup for the second consecutive year, Rapinoe is also growing dissident fighting for equal compensation in women’s sports and combatting racial foul play. In 2016, the soccer player made headlines in the wake of bowing in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick. Not only that, but the courageous captain recently condemned the International Olympics Committee’s ban on political protest by athletes at the games in Tokyo this summer.
Indeed, the star player has raised her voice on many important issues throughout her career, and this time is no different. Starting the year 2020 successfully, it was revealed on Wednesday that Megan Rapinoe will be the new face of the Spanish luxury brand Loewe‘s fall/winter 2020 campaign. The legendary soccer player’s photographs shot by photographer Steven Meisel and creative studio M/M will be put up on multiple billboards across Paris. “I am so thrilled about this partnership with Loewe and Jonathan Anderson,” Rapinoe says of the campaign. She added: “Multiple worlds crashing together, creating something bigger, different, and more exciting than either could alone. To me, the goal of collaboration should not be to stand next to one another, but rather become something else, together.”
Along with the photos, Rapinoe starred in a short film as the first installment in the brand’s “For Real” series. “We have to talk about everything, we have to get it out there, we have to show that we are here,” said Rapinoe, who has now become a forthright activist for equal pay, in the clip. What’s more, the campaign itself is an idea of distortion – of facial features, body postures, and object surfaces.
The main image of the campaign is of the soccer player slightly sticking her tongue out – and there’s a reason for that. It is an expression representing the signature face the soccer player pulls when she wins. When asked about it, she told CNN, “I feel like it’s self-expressive but in a cheeky way,” She added: “It’s just like, ‘Hey, we’re here, this is all of me.'”
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