The retro kit
This is the first time that Northern Ireland have qualified for the Euros and they’re celebrating in style – well, 1983 style, perhaps. This home kit, with its green body and blue stripe, looks a dead ringer for the ones worn on muddy pitches on 80 s Match of the Days, and is all the better for it. We can only hope it’s matched by period-appropriate micro shorts.
The fashion insider kit
Sure, there have been allegations of doping by Russian athletes and we’re meant to adopt a “boo hiss” approach to Russia since they’re England’s first opponents, but put all that aside. In fashion terms, Russia is totally hot right now. This is largely thanks to young buzzy designer Gosha Rubchinskiy, who uses Russian colours and cyrillic script in his designs. This kit plays into that design patriotism – the double eagle has been used as a Russian symbol since the 1300s.
The meta kit
If the hosts’ home kit is underwhelming – three shades of bleu for Les Bleus – the away kit is, quite frankly, an awesomely simple piece of design, turning the tricolore into a shirt. Players such as Paul Pogba and Antoine Griezmann will literally be wearing their flag on their sleeves. The French have previous with this idea: they once wore shirts designed to look like Breton tops. Plus ça change.
The athleisure kit
Simple, colourful and cool, take the badge away and the Belgium kit could easily pass for a T-shirt you’d find in JD Sports. As such, it’s totally athleisure – the kind of trend that threatens to infuriate sports fans with its lack of allegiance. See Drake, who has worn Man United, Chelsea and Bayern Munich shirts and wore a Juventus one recently. This has similar “wearing it for aesthetic reasons alone” crossover appeal.
The normcore kit
With past England teams built up as nailed-on winners before the first coin toss of a tournament, this time the media is taking a softly-softly approach. The same could be said of the kit, which is very downplayed. With white and sky blue, there’s nothing that will scare the horses. It’s down-the-pub acceptable but, with other pub staples such as trackies and Reebok Classics adopted by fashion post-normcore, there’s also a bit of understated cool. Here’s hoping Rooney and friends can translate that to their style of play.
The arty kit
Turkey’s away kit saw the designers going abstract. This is a bit clever – more like a Bridget Riley painting than the average sports top. As such, it’s the shirt that will appeal to gallerists and Arda Turan fans alike. While Turkish players will wear theirs with shorts, it would also totally work with Celine’s spring/summer 2014 paint stroke collection. Expect to see it teamed with just that by curators come this year’s Frieze art fair.
The 90s kit
It’s testament to the cult of England’s Italia 90 kit that when streetwear brand Palace collaborated with Umbro to make their version of the England kit for Euro 2012, that’s the one they referenced. Kits like this – all dial-up digital patterns – are cool again with millennials and sought after on eBay. Spain’s away kit is the only one in the 24 that recalls such design classics. Expect them all to look like this come the 2018 World Cup.
