ALL DAY I DREAM ABOUT SOCCER (ADIDAS)

Ahilan Ratnamohan recalls that as a child, he was initially drawn to the “Beautiful Game” not by the sport itself, but rather by the players’ colorful jerseys. The first World Cup he witnessed is etched deeply in his memory—not because of a trophy or goals, but because of the braided ponytail Roberto Baggio wore. To this day, he still vividly remembers the jerseys of every team in his U7 league.

In ALL DAY I DREAM ABOUT SOCCER (ADIDAS), Ahilan explores this mystical connection to the game—a connection he gradually distanced himself from as he began to play more seriously—drawing on his experiences in soccer and dance training. He traces the evolution of fashion in soccer over the past 30 years. Drawing on autobiographical memories of the jerseys that originally drew him to soccer, and on the various fashion influences that have shaped his connection to the sport, Ahilan traces the evolution of different fashion trends in modern soccer and their impact on culture in general.

He focuses on fabrics and specific ways of wearing clothing, and reflects on the potential effects these have on movements in soccer—both literally and figuratively. In doing so, he seeks to play with the “soccer dance”—which has shaped his choreographic work for the past 15 years—to find new ways of embodying these typically intense and efficient soccer movements and, in turn, to use these new movements to understand the conditions of his connection to the game.