Classic football shirts: check your wardrobe for hidden treasure

Classic football shirts have become a fashion item and are soaring in price. Have you got a winner in your wardrobe?

UEFA Euro 1988 - Final - Soviet Union Vs Netherlands
(Image credit: Bongarts/Getty Images)

Football shirts are no longer the preserve of the terraces, much less the boozer on a Saturday afternoon while the footie is on the telly. Colourful vintage strips have become – dare we say it – fashionable. Singer Mabel “recently sported a retro Arsenal 1992-1994 home jersey in Los Angeles… delighting football-shirt spotters like me”, says Felicia Pennant in British Vogue. A K-pop girl band “electrified” the crowd ahead of a match in Seoul and Kim Kardashian was spotted wearing a 1997 Roma shirt last year. Fashion houses have even teamed up with kit makers, giving us Reebok X Botter, for example, plus Umbro with Aries and Palace, and Adidas Arsenal x Labrum.

Smaller, independent fashion labels are going out of their way to source old shirts online, giving them new life as fashionable items of clothing for women. “Shirred football tops and England bandeau-style shirts [have] proved extremely popular for womenswear,” Charlie Oxley and Freddie Rose of Vintage Threads tell Vogue. Their “reworked” football shirts are stocked by Selfridges.

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Chris Carter
Wealth Editor, MoneyWeek

Chris Carter spent three glorious years reading English literature on the beautiful Welsh coast at Aberystwyth University. Graduating in 2005, he left for the University of York to specialise in Renaissance literature for his MA, before returning to his native Twickenham, in southwest London. He joined a Richmond-based recruitment company, where he worked with several clients, including the Queen’s bank, Coutts, as well as the super luxury, Dorchester-owned Coworth Park country house hotel, near Ascot in Berkshire.

Then, in 2011, Chris joined MoneyWeek. Initially working as part of the website production team, Chris soon rose to the lofty heights of wealth editor, overseeing MoneyWeek’s Spending It lifestyle section. Chris travels the globe in pursuit of his work, soaking up the local culture and sampling the very finest in cuisine, hotels and resorts for the magazine’s discerning readership. He also enjoys writing his fortnightly page on collectables, delving into the fascinating world of auctions and art, classic cars, coins, watches, wine and whisky investing.

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