49ers’ Juszczyk family caught in Taylor Swift vortex: ‘Good stuff going to come’

The biggest newcomer to burst on the NFL playoff scene over the weekend might not have been Jordan Love or C.J. Stroud. It might have been Kyle Juszczyk’s wife, Kristin.

The 49ers fullback was still beaming Tuesday over the events of Saturday night, ones that swept the San Jose Juszczyk household directly into the Taylor Swift vortex.

“Crazy,” Juszczyk said. “Crazy how powerful one person is.”

When Swift, one of the most recognizable, famous and influential people in the world, stepped out of a golf cart into the frigid air of Kansas City, wearing a custom puffer jacket emblazoned with her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s jersey number, the internet exploded. And so did the Juszczyks’ world.

“Just pure joy,” said the husband of the hottest new NFL gear designer. “Just for her to get that recognition. She’s been working so hard for so many years.”

And Juszczyk made sure his wife got her just recognition. He reposted almost every social media post — and there were thousands — and tagged his wife to make sure the world knew who was responsible for the fantastic gear. When at one point, the NBC announcers joked that Swift is so powerful that she can just “call Nike” and get a custom jacket, Juszczyk took offense.

“I was like, ‘C’mon, we got to let these people know it was all Kristen,’” he said, noting that NBC corrected its mistake. “I’m so proud of her. She’s extremely talented and the things she puts out there are one of a kind. So I want to make sure she gets the credit.”

Kristin Juszczyk has been making her custom designs for a few years. She rediscovered a love of sewing while creating Halloween costumes for herself and her husband and started making custom pieces out of her husband’s No. 44 jerseys and other 49ers gear.

The NFL world isn’t that big and the world of NFL wives is particularly well-connected and word started to circulate about “Mrs. Juice” and her cool creations. She handmakes each one and can spend up to 30 hours on any single item. Juszczyk said sometimes he’ll wake up at 3 in the morning and his wife is still downstairs in front of her sewing machine.

This season, Simone Biles was caught on camera wearing her husband’s Packers jersey converted into a puffy vest (one that she might be wearing again at Levi’s on Saturday night). When Deebo Samuel was spotted strolling into Levi’s on gameday in a custom Brock Purdy vest, covered in tiny MVP initials, Kristin Juszczyk started to trend.

No offense to Samuel, but getting Swift to wear her creation was just slightly bigger.

Kristin had made a creation for Brittany Mahomes, quarterback Patrick’s wife, and decided to make one for Swift as well. She had heard that the singer was planning to wear it.

“You never know until you get to the stadium,” Juszczyk said. “So we saw it at the same time everyone else did, when she came out of the golf cart with the jacket on. We were fired up.”

The wildly enthusiastic response to the product kept Kristin’s social numbers spinning upward all weekend, higher and higher as she gained more and more followers (“450K this is WILD” she posted on Monday morning).

It also underscored a reality about the NFL: the league seems to take its female customers for granted. Team gear aimed at women is pretty much team gear aimed at men with a slightly different cut. Or maybe in, ugh, pink. As Kristin Juszczyk has proven, there’s a huge market for smart and fashionable designs.

With that in mind, we all know it wouldn’t be above the NFL to steal Kristin’s intellectual property. Fortunately, the worldwide splash she made over the weekend should prevent any thievery.

“She’s had every company, every news outlet reach out to her,” Juszczyk said. “She has every option on the table right now and is going back and forth with a few companies. Some good stuff’s going to come from this. She’s doing a really good job of managing it.”

This news outlet reached out to her too, but Kristin’s email and DMs have been inundated, with missives from everyone from Vogue to Adam Schefter of ESPN (her husband had to explain that the latter was kind of a big deal).

Swift wasn’t the only celebrity receiving a custom jacket for the playoffs. Michigan native Taylor Lautner (of “Twilight” fame) reached out to Kristin. She made him a custom jacket from the jersey of Lions defensive end Aidan Hutchinson and Fed Ex’d it to Detroit. But the package got stuck in Memphis due to the weather. According to Juszczyk, Kristin tracked down the head of FedEx, made her plea, got it on a truck and had it delivered to Lautner on the Ford Field sideline. She posted video of Lautner opening the package and slipping on the jacket, with the tag “Team Jacob Forever.”

“The whole thing should be a Super Bowl commercial,” Juszczyk said.

But nothing compares to the most powerful woman in the entertainment industry slipping on a custom-made Kristin Juszczyk jacket. That the phenomena happened on a weekend when many clueless men — both high-profile like Tony Dungy and Brett Favre and low-profile social media trolls — decried the impact of a famous woman coming to watch her boyfriend play football made it even sweeter.

“Honestly one of the cooler things of this was merging different worlds; the football world was interested, the fashion world, the Swifties,” said Juszczyk, who realizes being swept into the Swift vortex is a positive.

“The more people we can bring into the football world is a good thing.”

And the more fashionably dressed, the better.

Born in San Francisco and raised in Marin County, Ann Killion has covered Bay Area sports for more than a quarter of a century. An award-winning columnist and a veteran of 11 Olympics, several World Cups and the Tour de France, Ann joined The Chronicle in 2012. Ann has worked for the San Jose Mercury News, the Los Angeles Times and Sports Illustrated. She is a New York Times best-selling author, having co-written “Solo: A Memoir of Hope” with soccer star Hope Solo,”Throw Like A Girl” with softball player Jennie Finch and two middle-grade books on soccer, “Champions of Women’s Soccer” and “Champions of Men’s Soccer.” She was named California Sportswriter of the Year in 2014, 2017 and 2018. She has two children and lives in Mill Valley.