All Designer Football Shirt Collaborations So Far
Over the last 5 years or so, fashion designers and streetwear brands have been popping up more and more frequently on the football pitch. Let's take a look back at all of the football x fashion collaborations we've seen so far.
All Designer Football Kits
Just as football's influence has been seeping into the fashion and streetwear scene, these two domains have also been leaving their mark on the beautiful game. Fashion houses like Balenciaga and Dolce & Gabbana have come up with their own takes on jerseys, Hector Bellerin walked in Louis Vuitton's Paris Fashion Week show a few years ago, while plenty of brands have actually teamed up with football clubs and their kit suppliers to produce special co-branded gear.
PSG alone are almost into the dozens of streetwear collabs and all the major clubs now have official fashion partners that kit them out with formal wear, but below we have listed the link-ups which have actually produced shirts that have appeared on the pitch.
Real Madrid x Adidas x Yohji Yamamoto - 14-15
The Japanese designer was the first name from the fashion scene to design a football shirt, coming up with this dragon-themed number for Real.
PSG x Jordan 2018- present
Jordan is of course a sportswear brand but it was their first time straying from basketball. Their shirts and lifestyle collections for PSG have been extremely popular since their inception, although in terms of designs they don't stray too far from those of parent company, Nike.
Juventus x Adidas x Palace - 19-20
Skate brand Palace have launched football pieces under their own name before, and in the 19-20 season they created a special shirt in collaboration with Adidas and Juve featuring fading disjointed stripes and touches of neon green, as well as a wider clothing range.
Adidas x Pharell x Human Race - 20-21
This trio combined to reimagine one iconic shirt from each of Adidas elite clubs at the time, with a hand-painted aesthetic. Bayern, Juve and Real Madrid wore theirs in matches but the two English clubs did not.
Napoli x Kappa x Marcelo Burlon - 20-21
The Argentinian-born designer combined his trademark feathered graphic with Kappa's infamously tight-fitting shirts and changed up the colourway for his Partenopei kits.
AC Milan x Puma x Nemen - 21-22
Part of Milanese brand Nemen's manifesto is "redirecting styles, techniques and materials from their typical manifestations towards new aesthetics and applications". Their AC Milan shirt was probably the most criticised of this genre but at least they stuck to their guns.
Real Madrid x Y-3 - 21-22
Y-3 is the long-running collaborative line from Adidas and Yohji Yamamoto, who was responsible for the first item on this list. For his return, he stuck to monochrome and the shirt bore the Y-3 logo instead of Adidas'.
Bari x Kappa x LC23 - 21-22
Designer Leo Colacicco wasn't trying to be revolutionary here, instead choosing to represent the city of Bari and the club with a brilliant octopus print and reference to the club's historical nickname "La Bari", all while borrowing from Kappa's archive of 90s kit elements. This one will be hard to beat from a purely aesthetic point of view.
Vicenza x Lotto x Diesel - 21-22
Renzo Rosso is the owner of both Diesel and Vicenza, and created this kit himself, breaking up and rotating some of the traditional stripes. This one proved very controversial with the fans and even led to them confronting Rosso in the stadium carpark. A provocative design, in the literal sense of the word.
Anderlecht x Joma x ARTE - 22-23
Antwerp-based ARTE gave Joma a hand in coming up with this blue to purple gradient shirt which was worn in a pre-season friendly. Quite the low-key occasion in comparison to most of the other collaborative launches.
Ajax x Adidas x Daily Paper - 22-23
Another instance of a club partnering with a brand from their hometown, Daily Paper are responsible for Ajax's gold third kit and a more interestingly patterned training range.
Monaco x Kappa x Drole de Monsieur
The French brand managed to really encapsulate the style of Monte Carlo with this one, using a luxurious colour palette and diamond motif on both the tracksuit and the match shirt. The Drole de Monsieur text underneath the Kappa omini logo looks the part too.
Roma x New Balance x Aries
Relatively subtle tie dye effects combined with Roma's famous colours, gold detailing and references to the history and culture of the city all play their part in this collaboration that is really well tailored to the club in question. Aries stamped their own style on the range but put the club's identity at the centre of everything.
What's your take on these collaborations? Are you dead set against them or do you reserve judgement until you've seen the results? Which ones have worked well in your opinion? Comment below.
