Taylor Swift put Massapequa's Kristin Juszczyk on the map. Now she aims to stay there with her sports fashion designs.
LAS VEGAS — There may only be one small speck of space in the entire world where Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are not the undisputed top power couple in this year’s Super Bowl.
In Massapequa, where Kristin Juszczyk grew up and where she now spends about half the year living with her husband, 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk, they are the king and queen of this event.
The neighborhood had already been buzzing the past few years having an NFL player on the block.
“I have kids show up at my front door even when we're not in the Super Bowl just asking for pictures and autographs, so I'm sure they're going crazy now,” Kyle said this week while getting ready for the big game on Sunday with his team.
Now, though, there are two celebrities in the house who may be getting the star treatment.
Kristin has skyrocketed to fame as one of the hottest clothing designers in the country. She was already creating one-of-a-kind outfits for herself to wear to Kyle’s games, snipping and sewing his jerseys together, then branched out to design for other women with ties to the NFL, including Olympic champ Simone Biles, who is married to Green Bay Packers safety Jonathan Owens, and Brittany Mahomes, wife of Kansas City quarterback Patrick. She then evolved into menswear: 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel wore one of her puffer vests made to look like the jersey of his quarterback Brock Purdy to a game in late December, and actor Taylor Lautner had one made to express his support for the Lions in the playoffs.
But that was nothing compared to what happened on Jan. 13.
Taylor Swift wears a Travis Kelce jacket before a playoff football game between Kansas City and Miami. Credit: AP/Ed Zurga
That’s when Kansas City hosted its Wild Card game against the Dolphins and Swift showed up wearing one of Kristin’s puffer jackets in the style of a Kelce jersey.
“Adrenaline, so much adrenaline, and just happiness.,” Kristin said on NBC's “Today” show this week about the sensation of seeing her work being worn by the biggest and most influential pop star in the world. “It was such a pinch-me moment. It just was incredible.”
Kyle quickly turned to social media, screaming from the digital rooftops that it was his wife who had created that striking look.
“And that’s when things really started to pick up,” Kyle chuckled.
Suddenly everyone wanted to have Kristin make their clothes. She received requests from everyone from movie stars to Vice President Kamala Harris. Last week she struck a licensing deal with the NFL. And there will undoubtedly be more than a few of her works on some of the more famous folks attending Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday.
What Kristin and Kyle couldn’t have imagined at the time was that they were on a collision course with Taylor and Travis. While the two football players have faced each other plenty over their long careers, including in the Super Bowl four years ago, Kristin and Taylor have never actually met.
That has a pretty good chance of happening Sunday when Swift is expected to arrive in Las Vegas in time for the big game after wrapping up a series of shows in Tokyo.
Despite not having that direct contact — and their husband and boyfriend being on opposing teams — Kristin said she owes a lot to Swift.
“She single-handedly catapulted my career,” she said in the TV interview. “I’ve been at this for years. When I saw her walk out in that jacket, it brought me to tears."
“I’m so incredibly proud,” Kyle said. “My wife has just been so phenomenal throughout this whole process and I'm so happy that she's getting the recognition that she is because she is so talented and it just was a matter of time until people saw that. I really do think that she can make a serious change in women's fashion in the sports world and I think that's something that, at least from the feedback that we've gotten, women have been waiting for.”
While Kristin grew up in Massapequa, Kyle is from Ohio and went to school at Harvard. He was drafted by the Ravens and then came to the 49ers. During the season the two live in San Jose, but they still spend their summers on Long Island.
“I knew nothing about it whatsoever until I met my wife,” Kyle said of the region he now calls his offseason home. “Long Island summers are incredible. You know, I didn't grow up being a boating guy, but I married into a boating family and we now have our own boats so we're out on the water and do a lot of fishing and that sort of stuff. So yeah, I love the Long Island summers.”
He still makes time to train for his career, working out at a nearby facility.
There’s only one thing that will make this month better for them, and that would be a Super Bowl title. Four years ago they were close, leading Kansas City in the fourth quarter. Kyle even scored a touchdown in that game with Kristin in the stands.
“Obviously, that moment was incredible,” he said of the touchdown. “It was extra special because the end zone that we scored in, my family was 15 yards away from me. So I made eye contact with them and pointed right to them after I scored. And somebody sitting behind them had grabbed a video of them as the play was happening and got their reaction of the whole event. And that's something very special and something we'll always have in my family.”
There are going to be a lot more cameras on Kristin this time if Kyle scores again. She’s become part of the star power that helps make the Super Bowl not only a sports championship but a cultural spectacle. And there is a pretty good chance that if Kelce or Mahomes scores or makes a big play, one of Kristin’s designs will pop up on the TV screen as well when the broadcast inevitably cuts to show their biggest fans.
Kristin won’t say what she has in store for Sunday’s wardrobes — neither hers nor others’ — but posted on Instagram this week that she “can’t wait for you guys to see my Super Bowl creations.” She said she “put my blood, sweat and tears into every single one.”
And then, at some point after the game, after the business of closing out the season in California is over, it will be back to Massapequa for the two of them.
One of them may or may not be a Super Bowl champion by then. The other will have a whole new level of renown. Those knocks on the door will keep coming. And together they will continue climbing to the pinnacles of their fields.
“She's 100% elevated me as a person, always pushes me, and I try to do the same for her and I think that's one of the beauties of our relationship is that we're able to push one another out of our comfort zones,” Kyle said. “I think that's kind of what has gotten us both to where we are at now.”
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
