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.
“Part of the appeal [of vintage football shirts], without a doubt, is the streetwear boom,” says Rory Smith in The New York Times. Last year, private equity firm Chernin Group bought a stake in Classic Football Shirts, a retailer with shops in London and Manchester, spying the potential for fashion to do to shirts what it did to trainers. Former US football star Alex Morgan and actor-cum-Wrexham-FC-owner Rob McElhenney have followed suit and now the company is planning its expansion across the Atlantic.
MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE
Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Why are vintage football shirts so popular?
But vintage football shirts also “root the wearer in a specific era [and] act as a gauge of the depth of their fandom”, says Smith. Every shirt is personal and “each jersey acts as a repository of memory”. Another factor is that, before the 1990s, clubs and kit makers were slow to cotton on to the money that could be made from selling fans their shirts. As a result, many are extremely rare.
“The collectors’ holy grail is Holland ’88,” Tomas Jones, founder of Wrexham-based Vintage Football Shirts, tells Alexander Tyndall in the Financial Times. The bright orange, geometric-patterned tops today fetch around £900. West Germany’s white 1990 World Cup shirt, with its “angular red, black and yellow swoop across the chest”, is also much sought after. Swindon-based Cult Kits sells it for £300 on its website.
Such has been the craze – web searches for “vintage football shirts” rose 5,000% in the past few months globally, notes Vogue – that fakes have begun entering the market. “Always go to a trusted retailer,” warns Josh Warwick of Cult Kits. His firm is careful to authenticate the shirts it sells as genuine.
But not all knock-offs – or “vintage bootlegs”, as Charlie Holder of Brilliant Corner Shop calls them – are bad. In the old days, “designers [were] making guesses” as to what a team’s new kit would look like before its official release, the seller of vintage apparel tells the FT. “The notion of unofficial shirts is really evocative.”
This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.
-
The key October self-assessment tax return deadlines to remember so you can avoid a shock billThere are two important dates for self-assessment taxpayers to remember in October
-
Bank of England’s MPC expected to pause interest rate cutsThe UK economy is weakening, but persistent inflation means experts expect the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to vote against a cut to UK interest rates at this week’s meeting
-
Small UK industrial stocks are hidden gemsOpinion Ed Wielechowski of the Odyssean Investment Trust highlights three of his favourite British small-cap industrial stocks
-
Aurora Innovation is running on empty – is it overvalued?Aurora Innovation, a maker of self-driving trucks, may have promised far more than it can deliver
-
'Ride the recovery in emerging markets': Gustavo Medeiros of Ashmore Group tells MoneyWeekInterview What's the outlook for emerging markets? Gustavo Medeiros, head of research at Ashmore Group, gives his analysis and reviews progress in developing economies
-
What is the Enterprise Investment Scheme and should you have one?The Enterprise Investment Scheme is tax-efficient and potentially lucrative. Taking a chance on the scheme could trim your family’s IHT bill, says David Prosser
-
The alcohol industry is suffering as consumers sober up – is it still worth investing in the sector?Changing consumer tastes are rocking the alcohol industry, but the best players are adapting their strategies. Buy them while their shares are still cheap
-
A strange calm in creditCorporate bond markets remain remarkably relaxed, with yields that offer little compensation for risks
-
'The City's big bet on green finance fails to pay out'Opinion Insurers and banks are backing away from “green finance”, and there is not much sign of the green boom we were promised. That’s a problem for the City
-
Why is English football thriving – and can it last?What has gone so right for English football? The national team has found its feet; the Premier League is swimming in money and profits are soaring
