Looking for something stylish to wear to the next Philadelphia Eagles game?
Pittsburgh-based fashion designer Kiya Tomlin is here to help. Tomlin has teamed up with the NFL to create Kiya Tomlin X NFL, an official licensed collection of game-day chic apparel for women. Nearly 41% of NFL fans are women.
“When selecting the teams for the line, we knew it had to be a blend of AFC and NFC teams, but we also wanted to do teams who had a similar weather climate to Pittsburgh,” Tomlin said.
“One of the obvious choices was the Eagles,” she added. “They have a similar climate to Pittsburgh and the team really has a great color scheme with black, green, silver and gray.”
In addition to the Eagles, the collection is available for nine other teams including the Baltimore Ravens, Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, Kansas City Chiefs, Pittsburgh Steelers and Washington Commanders. The collection will expand and include other teams in 2023.
The seven-piece clothing collection is designed, milled and created in the U.S. and is made with sustainable bamboo blends.
The limited edition collection starts at $69 and is currently available at www.kiyatomlin.us. The collection will also be available at www.nflshop.com in October.
“I have a preference for the sweatshirt fleece; it’s a soft fabric that is also comfortable,” Tomlin said. “I knew I wanted to bring that into the NFL collection.
“The collection itself offers unique pieces that you can wear at the games and mix and match with your regular wardrobe whether it’s to work, date night, running errands or hanging out with friends” she added.
Tomlin, who’s married to Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, is no stranger to football-inspired fashions. For the past couple of years, she’s sold her own collection of black-and-gold looks, but this is the first time one of her collections was officially licensed by the NFL.
Tomlin, however, said she originally had no plans to start her own NFL collection.
“I’m not a football person and I never wore any of the attire; it just didn’t fit my own personal style” Tomlin said.
“When I got to Pittsburgh, I had my own store and people were always asking me if I sold NFL clothing at my store,” she said. “It made me think that maybe there are women out there who want to wear NFL clothing, but they don’t because it doesn’t fit their own aesthetic.
“I took a chance and designed a Steelers inspired collection for women in black and yellow,” she added. “The line was a hit. I eventually reached out to the NFL to see about getting a license. It took a couple of years, but the line is now here.”
A New Jersey native, Tomlin became interested in fashion when she was a little girl. At age 10, she asked her mom for a sewing machine. In middle school, she started making all of her clothing and designed her own prom dress in high school.
“My mom didn’t sew and or have any interest in fashion, but she took Home Ec in eighth grade,” Tomlin said. “We read the sewing machine manual together and from there I started making my own clothes for myself, friends and family.
“I even brought my sewing machine to college,” she added. “I did clothes for my college roommate, my gymnastics coach and for different events. That’s how I made additional money.”
Upon graduating from The College of William and Mary where Tomlin studied pre-med, she got married. After learning that her husband wanted to become a college football coach, she gathered they would relocate frequently, making applying for medical school difficult.
Tomlin would move to Arkansas, Ohio, Florida and ultimately Pennsylvania. While in Ohio, she enrolled in the University of Cincinnati’s fashion design program.
She would later become a fashion designer and launched The Kiya Tomlin fashion brand in 2014. The brand offers practical, versatile and stylish clothing for women.
In the fall, Tomlin launched the brand’s first plus size collection. She also hopes to launch her own fragrance in the future.
“What makes the Kiya Tomlin brand unique is that we’re always looking to re-purpose the fabric,” Tomlin said. “Because we manufacture in house, we have better control over how things are laid out and really minimize the waste and reallocate the fabric into other areas.
“With our main collection, when we start new styles each season, we create them in small batches,” she said. “We see how they sell and if they sell well, we make more. If they don’t sell we stop making them so we don’t waste product, fabric and time.
“I use the same fabric for the entire collection, which is a blend of bamboo, cotton and spandex,” she added. “Then, we just reallocate that fabric to another design.”
Tomlin said the advice she would give future business owners is to pay attention to the marketing of their business.
“When I first started my business, the main thing I wanted to do was just create,” Tomlin said. “I didn’t realize how much marketing needs to play a role in my business.
“I thought, if you make something nice people will come and buy it, but if they don’t know about it they can’t come and buy it,” she added. “Marketing plays a huge role in every business.”
