I didn’t think the Super Bowl halftime show could top Rihanna or Kendrick Lamar, but Bad Bunny, or Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, wrote history. The performance turned the world’s biggest stage into a celebration of Latin identity. No English lyric, not a single South American flag missing, but also no Latin clothing tag in sight, unless you count the one stamped ‘Raul López’ on Lady Gaga’s back. That absence deserves a closer look.
A black velvet Schiaparelli suit, complete with spine-crawling lacing, set the tone at the 2026 Grammys, where Bad Bunny took home Album of the Year just a week before the big game. When halftime came around, the creative direction stripped everything down to two looks. The first paired cropped chinos with a jíbaro-style rope belt, and a crisp shirt and tie layered under a cropped padded American football jersey that carried the number 64 on the front and the name “Ocasio” on the back, homage to his uncle Cutito, born in 1964 and responsible for Benito’s early NFL education. The look was grounded with his Adidas collaboration sneakers, the BadBo 1.0. The second look layered on a blazer and an Audemars Piguet watch,18-karat yellow gold housing a malachite stone face. The back, however, told a different story. An uncut basted vent made the suit feel fresh off the hanger, and not in a good way. But even the unfinished seam stayed true to theme. Cream, and Zara.
On the surface, it’s easy to see why people are cheering. A global Latino superstar, in this time and age, mind you, standing for love, unity, people, culture, on a stage that usually favors the untouchably expensive. People got to see themselves not just in the lyrics, but in the clothes too, actually feel like they were part of the moment. They got to watch what happened around him, instead of him being the whole show. And at first thought, I get it, every detail was built around inclusivity, after all.
“Zara is a brand a lot of people touch,” I think to myself, scrolling through a random video on social media where someone voices their take. A few seconds later, I see a comment. “Best Hispanic brand, and affordable,” before I even have a second to raise an eyebrow a reply pops up, “ Ah, yes, the Latin American country of Spain,” I laugh and continue reading the rest of the section. “No, he wore Zara because in Latin America, it’s considered haute couture. We all wanted Zara when we were little, so our moms used to dig through all the clothing containers that came from the US to us in hopes of finding something,” my stomach clenches. Another uncomfortable thought forms. “Is Latin America the targeted consumer market, or the dumping ground?”
Chile’s Atacama Desert is fast-fashion’s third biggest graveyard, with 60,000 tonnes of used clothing finding their way there every year, according to The Guardian. So who’s really paying the price of accessible fashion? Maybe the Indigenous communities of Peru and Bolivia, the luxury industry’s favorite suppliers when it comes to baby alpaca wool. Yet they struggle financially. Maybe the people whose cultural aesthetics fuel the profits of our Pinterest-pinned brands. Yet Latin American designers are left with no government support or infrastructure. Perhaps even the workers clocking endless hours inside fast fashion’s opaque supply chains, only for those same garments to circle back as waste, landing frighteningly close to home. And the cycle keeps spinning.
Look at it one way, and you’ll see why people are losing it. Look at it the other way, and you’ll see why people are losing it. One different perspective, or one missed opportunity, doesn’t rewrite the entire narrative. It was a show built on love, visibility, and validation, at a time when all three feel urgent. Even I felt represented, and I’m Greek, and nowhere near the US or its halftime ritual. Still, a familiar feeling sticks around, two steps forward, one step back.
