Mercury13-owned FC Como Women Launch Fashion Line Designed By AI

The debut of FC Como Women's new Nike kits for the season included a 50-person crew for a photoshoot in a luxury London hotel, but when the Italian club unveiled an off-field apparel line for the brand, it did so entirely using artificial intelligence.

Fashion AI School co-founder Olska Green, a traditional-turned-digital designer, created the 12-piece essentials collection of shirts, sweaters, hats and bags using only AI. The print-on-demand fashion line reduces significant overhead costs and spares the Mercury13-owned Como Women a sizable inventory investment. The whole process, from inception to sales, took less than a month.

"It's hopefully opened the door that wasn't there before to show other women's football clubs or even women's sports clubs that they don't need $50,000 to launch a retail strategy," Mercury13 co-founder Victoire Cogevina Reynal said. "They can do it in a much more sustainable way that's a lot more flexible to this very changing environment because the consumer is evolving, growing, changing their mind of what they want, what they don't want."

Mercury13 launched in 2023, acquiring Como Women a year later and its second club, Bristol City Women, earlier this month. The multi-club ownership group received a significant investment from Marc Lasry's Avenue Sports Fund late last year.

"There's always been an assumption that merchandising and retail was going to be a huge driver of revenues," Reynal said. "That's just an overlay of how women behave in other spaces, whether it's other sports, but also generally speaking in their day-to-day lives. And the Como Women brand was built for that. It's a lifestyle brand. It's built to emulate luxury brands. It's Italian, it's Lake Como. It had all the ingredients to be something women would want to wear on them, whether they were fans of the clubs or not."

The genesis of the idea dates back to a Vogue Business Global Summit at a Renaissance-era villa along the shore of Lake Como. Reynal spoke at the event, which Green attended. They later connected over Instagram and began collaborating.