With Liverpool FC unveiling its new Liverpool Adidas kit, it’s clear that football shirts are no longer just for the stands. A football shirt is much more than just club loyalty: it’s now a cultural symbol, a business opportunity for high-end fashion, and a driving force in streetwear trends.
- Symbol of culture
Football kits have evolved into powerful representations of local identity and heritage. Designs are carefully crafted to reflect the city’s culture, history, and pride. Take Manchester City’s 23/24 kit as an example, which served as a tribute to its city’s industrial roots with archival Mancunian weave patterns, a colour palette inspired by the brickworks of Ancoats, and graphics representing Manchester’s factory skyline. This shows how modern kit design transcends sport, becoming wearable storytelling that connects supporters to their geographical and cultural roots. Each season brings new interpretations of club heritage, with designers mining local history to create shirts that become cultural artefacts whilst maintaining contemporary appeal.
- Lucrative partnerships
High-end fashion designers are interested in football merchandise and its lucrative business potential. Notable partnerships showcase this growing intersection between luxury fashion and sport. PSG’s collaboration with Jordan Brand featured a luxury streetwear collection at this year’s Paris Fashion Week, with the star attraction being a £7,500 pair of Air Jordan High 1s. Recent data shows that football kit fashion trends for 2024-25 have reached unprecedented levels of sophistication, with embossed patterns, premium materials, and off-white colourways becoming standard across top-tier releases. These collaborations are important revenue streams for clubs, with limited-edition releases often selling out within hours of launch.
- Inspires fashion
Football culture is reshaping everyday fashion and streetwear in remarkable ways. The recent ‘Blokecore’ aesthetic trending across social media epitomises modern streetwear, combining vintage sporty elements from England fans of the 70s and 80s with touches of urban clothing. The trend has gained massive traction with millions of TikTok views tagged #blokecore, showing football’s profound influence on contemporary fashion. This movement sees vintage football shirts paired with baggy jeans, Adidas Sambas, and retro tracksuits, creating looks that work equally well in trendy urban cafés as they do on match days. Celebrities like Bella Hadid and Rihanna have embraced this aesthetic, further cementing football’s position at the forefront of fashion.
Today’s football shirts have multiple functions: they’re sporting uniforms, fashion statements, cultural symbols, and investment pieces. The boundaries between sportswear and high fashion continue to blur, creating opportunities for clubs, designers, and fans to express identity through carefully curated style choices that go far beyond the ninety minutes on the pitch.
