Caitlin McCarthy teams up with Nike to celebrate the most famous bra in women's football

With the Women’s World Cup in full swing, firm it’s Nice That favourite Caitlin McCarthy has been tapped up by Nike to produce a short film which explores one of the game’s most justly celebrated celebrations.

No, the uber-talented London-based animator hasn’t decided that now’s the time to memorialise one of Lomano LuaLua’s more exuberant backflips. Instead, she’s worked with the Oregonian sportswear giants to turn a legendary World Cup-winning moment into a typically brilliantly-executed bit of work, and it’s Brandi Chastain who’s the star of the show. Or more specifically, it’s Brandi Chastain’s bra which is the star of McCarthy’s show.

Keen football fans will remember that Chastain scored the decisive penalty in the 1999 Women’s World Cup final, which saw the USA triumph over China on a sweltering summer’s evening in deepest Pasadena. The 99,000-strong audience erupted, but no one seemed to enjoy the moment nearly as much as the goalscorer herself. The ball hit the back of the net, Chastain’s shirt came off, and one of modern American sport’s most iconic moments was born.

McCarthy’s 90-second short is narrated by Chastain herself and sees the former soccer star telling us what happened to that bra in the years following the moment it found itself catapulted to fame across the globe.

Talking about the short’s aesthetic, Caitlin says “it was quite a quick turnaround, so the limited colour palette allowed us to spend more time animating things more elaborately, like the hero shot of Brandi’s celebration, without having to cut back on the wiggly textural style I like using.”

Caitlin goes on to say that, “it was my first time trying to capture a real person’s likeness too, I usually keep faces to the old ‘three dots and a line’ so it was interesting for me to try to use that to represent someone specific.”