ME+EM & Rachael Blackmore

Summer 2026 presented a defining moment for women’s sport, with a packed calendar of major tournaments including UEFA Women’s EURO 2025 and the Women’s Rugby World Cup.

For ME+EM, this created an opportunity to connect with a growing cultural movement around women’ sport and the athletes at its centre. As a British womenswear brand with a strong focus on empowering women, ME+EM wanted to place themselves in the cultural conversation, while celebrating women who had achieved success on their own terms and built lasting legacies across British and Irish sport.

Fashion and sport are becoming increasingly intertwined, with brands (from high street chains to luxury fashion houses) partnering with leading athletes to build cultural relevance, extend their reach and connect with new audiences.

Many of these collaborations are developed around moments of peak visibility - using major tournaments to place brands alongside athletes when attention is already at its highest.

With a summer calendar dominated by women’s sport, we set about identifying an iconic British or Irish athlete who would automatically embody ME+EM’s values, using the wider sporting moment as a platform to celebrate her legacy and place the brand at the heart of a broader conversation around women’s achievements in sport.

Playmaker looked beyond the tournament calendar to identify a sporting personality whose story, achievements and cultural relevance could create a natural fit with ME+EM.

The answer was Rachael Blackmore, one of the most recognisable figures in Irish sport and a trailblazer whose success has helped redefine perceptions of women in horse racing. Her profile offered ME+EM the opportunity to align with an athlete whose influence extended well beyond her performances on the track.

Bringing Blackmore into the ME+EM brand world, the partnership was positioned around the idea of celebrating women who challenge convention and create their own definition of success, tied together under the ‘Summer of Sport’ campaign. Rather than focusing solely on sporting achievement, the collaboration connected Blackmore’s personal story and distinctive identity with ME+EM’s proposition of modern, confident womenswear.

The partnership positioned ME+EM at the intersection of fashion, women’s sport and the wider cultural conversation around female achievement, using Rachael Blackmore’s profile to give the brand a distinctive voice during a pivotal summer for women’s sport.

Spotlighting Blackmore in the immediate aftermath of her retirement, ME+EM was able to celebrate a record-breaking sporting career, as well as the confidence and individuality behind it. Blackmore’s achievements, including becoming the first female jockey to win the Grand National and Cheltenham Gold Cup, gave the campaign a powerful story to bring to ME+EM’s audience.

The partnership also enabled ME+EM to connect its summer collection and brand proposition with a highly relevant cultural moment, with Blackmore appearing in the brand ‘Time Trial’ editorial around Royal Ascot and sharing her reflections on success, failure and what came next.

This resulted in a partnership that allowed ME+EM to move beyond simply sponsoring the moment in women’s sport, instead using an iconic athlete to celebrate a broader idea of women defining success on their own terms.

The timing was key for this partnership. Announced days after Rachael’s retirement, it gave her a platform to reflect on the next chapter of her career and a key date in the racing calendar, Royal Ascot.

Amid the wider sporting summer, ME+EM’s first foray into sport was a success, turning a major sporting moment into a brand-relevant cultural conversation.