Angel City’s 2022 away jersey, Daylight, is a bold, distinctive, fashion-forward design that quickly became a fan favorite—and because the club is releasing a new away kit in 2023, Daylight is synonymous with ACFC’s inaugural season. The jersey was designed by Matthew Wolff; we talked with Angel City Creative Director Amedea Tassinari about its inspiration and the choices that went into it.
What’s the story behind the design of this jersey?
The home kit, Dawn, is about our club, and the away kit, Daylight, is about our city. The home jersey’s sunrise pattern represents the dawn of a new era. It's art deco, which ties back to our stadium—and downtown's architecture—but the “dawn” is the dawn of a new day and Angel City's arrival, so that jersey is really our club story.
Meanwhile, our city story for our first year is very much 'cool LA.' Where Dawn is a classic design, Daylight is a bold, street-ready design. It’s this very sunny summer, beautiful weather, West Coast vibe, with these palm branches coming in everywhere. I absolutely love the black palm, which is mirrored by the black left sleeve, while the rest of it is white and bright. We refer to it as Daylight rather than something like “sunset,” because we’re still on that bigger story of optimism and the dawn of a new day. So the home and away kits each refer to the theme of beginnings in different ways.
We also didn't want it to be strictly beach vibes, because LA is so much deeper than that. So there’s an asphalt texture you'll see on all these palm branches—and with the black palm branches, our black color is called Asphalt. Whenever we talk about this jersey, we always say from the concrete to the coast, because we never want to just say coast. That’s very intentional, because LA’s landscape is also LA’s diversity. It’s a full, 360° LA jersey.
Talk about the color Sol Rosa. Why is it called that?
We had our color before we even had the crest, and it was intentionally named. Pink was never really a femininity choice—it’s about sunshine, which again goes back to the theme of, on a surface level it feels LA, but on a deeper level it's about optimism and about pushing towards the future, just like the angel in the crest.
It's in Spanish on purpose, because we wanted to create a connection to LA’s Latin roots and honor that as we move forward. ¡Volemos!, which is like our mantra, is on the back of the jersey—we wear that on our backs. It’s subtle, but it's always there.
And then when the players wear the Daylight jersey, they obviously wear Sol Rosa shorts. Again, being in our first year, we want to come strong with our brand colors and our brand identity. You see them on the pitch and you know it's Angel City, and not just from the color—you look at it and it would be hard to identify this as another city in the NWSL. “Undoubtedly LA” is the tagline for this one.
Could you talk about the photoshoot the club did for this jersey?
Our photoshoot was really cool. It was outdoors, using natural light. We drove to three different spots around LA and used some cool palm shadows—because there are palm trees everywhere, right? Not just by the beach. Then we styled the jersey in a way that's not just a player on the pitch or a person attending a game. This is you going about your life, hitting the streets with this jersey. It’s a fashion item and a piece of your wardrobe, not just your uniform to wear to the game.
This jersey was only for 2022—did that impact the design at all?
Every year, typically, you get one new kit, either home or away. We chose the home kit, Dawn, to be the two-year jersey and make it a little more timeless. Anyone with any style could wear it and style it in a way that makes sense for them. Daylight being a one-year jersey, on the other hand, gave us the runway to be really bold with it, really in the now.
Let’s return to the “volemos” on the back of the jersey. Could you say a little more about that?
'Volemos' is such an important part of the story. We were able to add that because Sprouts, who is the back-of-kit sponsor, believes in our community and wanted LA represented on our backs alongside them.
I think on that note, the story of the jersey can’t be told without the story of the 10% giveback. Because of Doordash, Birdies, and Sprouts, we're able to give 10% of those sponsorship dollars back into the community. In this year alone, we’ve distributed 36,000 pounds of produce with Sprouts and 305,000 meals with DoorDash; with Birdies, we led a paid six-week internship for eight young leaders from a school in South LA. This city jersey isn’t just about being cool or fashionable LA—it's also actively giving back to the LA community.