Mackenzie Arnold On The Sacred Space Between The Pitch And The Pub

There’s this thing that happens after the most intense moments of your life, this exhale that feels like it has weight to it, and for Mackenzie Arnold, that moment has always looked the same: a pint with your mates, and a conversation where you don’t talk about the match or the pressure or what comes next, you just talk about absolutely nothing that matters at all, and somehow that’s everything. It’s called the third half in Australian sporting culture, that sacred social space that exists between the pitch and the pub, between high-pressure performance and rest, between being an athlete and just being a person. And when Hahn came to Arnold about designing a bag that could hold this entire philosophy, that could somehow translate the feeling of switching off into something tactile and beautiful, she didn’t overthink it. She just understood that what they were really asking her to do was design permission.

But before we get to the bag, we need to understand the person behind it. Mackenzie Arnold’s relationship with visibility, with taking up space, hasn’t always been straightforward. For years, she existed in the margins of Australian women’s football, playing when she could, building her way up without the certainty of consistent game time. “I think I wasn’t even playing really regularly before 2023,” she explains, “and the start of that year is when I started having a bit more game time, and it just sort of kept going in that direction.” Then came the World Cup, and everything shifted. Suddenly, she wasn’t just a footballer anymore, she was Mackenzie Arnold, the goalkeeper who helped carry Australia to the World Cup final, the athlete whose every move was being dissected and celebrated and scrutinised all at once.

The change was seismic. “After the World Cup, my life changed dramatically,” she says, and there’s both gratitude and weight in that sentence. What had been a gradual climb became a vertical ascent, and with it came something she wasn’t entirely prepared for: the weight of expectations, the sense that every game had to be perfect, that there were thousands of eyes waiting for her to succeed or fail. But here’s what’s interesting about Arnold: she’s not interested in pretending that success is a simple equation.

There’s a hard-won wisdom in that statement, the kind that only comes from sitting with disappointment, from learning to hold both the love for something and the knowledge that it might not last forever.

That philosophy is particularly relevant now, as she heads into the AFC Women’s Asian Cup, a tournament happening on home soil in front of crowds that have been waiting for this moment. The timing feels almost serendipitous, a moment where women’s football in Australia has finally been granted the kind of visibility and investment that was always deserved but so rarely given. Arnold’s perspective on the tournament is measured and realistic. “I think this Asian Cup will be a massive one for us. Again, there’s going to be expectations on us, but I think they’re realistic. I think after the World Cup, everyone was almost expecting us to win, and we had very high expectations of ourselves. But I think every single country in women’s football is getting better and better.” It’s the perspective of someone who has learned that chasing perfection is less important than showing up authentically, game after game.

This is also why Arnold’s personal style matters, and why the Hahn Après Duffle matters. “My style is, I would say, very minimalistic. It’s very laid back. I’m more obsessed with the way something fits to sort of express my fashion in a way,” she explains. “I love my neutral colours. I don’t like stepping out there too much out of my comfort zone.” It sounds simple, but in the context of women’s sport, where there’s often pressure to be bigger, louder, more visible, there’s something rather radical about someone choosing to be exactly who they are. The bag reflects this perfectly; it’s understated, clean, and functional. Made from natural canvas with leather accents, punctuated by an insulated chamber designed entirely for keeping beers cold. There’s a cosmetics pouch, a footwear compartment, and modular packing cells.

What’s genuinely moving about Arnold’s involvement in this collaboration is how personal it was. Working across continents and time zones, the design process took eight months of meetings and sample reviews. “I’ve played sports my whole life, so bringing that experience into the design felt really natural,” she explains. “Every step of the process was genuinely collaborative, resulting in a final piece that feels both intentional and personal.” The exterior features two numbers: her career-defining 18, the number that held her during some of the biggest moments of her life, and her current 1, which represents who she is now, today, in this moment. Past and present co-existing without erasing each other.

For Arnold, this was her first foray into product design, and it came at a moment when she was beginning to think differently about fashion and sport. “I think fashion coming more so into sport and professional athletes, I think is definitely going in the right direction, and there’s definitely room to grow with that,” she says.

But here’s what Arnold is genuinely uncertain about: whether this will change her relationship with fashion going forward. When asked if she might walk a runway or step further into the spotlight, she laughs. “I am very bad with coming out of my comfort zone with things like that. I feel like again, being a very laid back person, I don’t like being too much in the spotlight or any attention at all. So I’m very much like, I take pride in what I wear, and I do like fashion, but at the same time, I’m like, you’re not about to see me in a multi-coloured jacket.” There’s honesty in that, a refusal to perform what she thinks the world wants from a visible woman athlete. “I’m trying to come out of my comfort zone with things like that in certain photo shoots and stuff, and get around that. But yeah, it’s a work in progress.”

What she is certain about is the importance of having space to just be. “I think it’s being with my friends,” she says when asked about her favourite way to switch off. “Honestly, my friends and my family are, like, my easiest way, as long as I’m being social in some aspect, I’m okay having a couple drinks, having a coffee, whatever it is.” She’s noticed something shift in herself over the past few years, a deeper gratitude for the people around her. “I think before I moved out of home, it was just like, whatever. But now, when I’m home every night, I’m asking, well, what are we doing? Mum and Dad are often like we just did something for the last four nights. So I think even just wanting the family to always be together, I think it’s so different from when I was younger.”

It’s in these moments, the relaxed and whimsical ones with her friends and family, that the third half takes on its real meaning. The Hahn Après Duffle is the physical manifestation of that space and philosophy. A small run of just 50 duffles have been created, and active Australians have the chance to win one of 10 limited-edition versions by heading to Hahn and Mackenzie Arnold’s social accounts. But beyond the opportunity to own it, what matters is what this bag represents: a moment in sport where women athletes are finally being allowed, and more importantly, are finally allowing themselves, to be multidimensional.

In designing this bag, Mackenzie Arnold created something that holds the contradiction of who she is; the world-class athlete and the person who just wants a quiet drink with her mates. She created a vessel for transition, but more than that, she created a declaration that the third half is sacred, that switching off is not a luxury, and that showing up exactly as you are is the most important performance of all.