We’re in the grip of transfer season, which for many (Fabrizio Romano) is the most exciting time of the year. It’s all gossip and conjecture and appalling sums of money right now, and the weird headlines just keep coming. Declan Rice is the most expensive Englishman in history! A man known as the ‘Turkish Messi’ has signed for Real Madrid! David De Gea tweeted the juggler emoji! Saudi Arabia! But there is a new weirdness, an anomaly caused by the only thing that can cut through the transfer season gunge: kit releases.
Ever since football clubs realised that they could in fact be fashion brands, too, the launch of a new kit has become crucial to a club’s annual success. Nail it and pre-season is bathed in good will, and the squad goes into the season with a sense of (sartorial) invincibility. Naff it up and you’ll be the laughing stock of the league before a ball has even been kicked. Aston Villa, for example, have managed to unveil a kit that is not good and offensive, apparently. A sickly combo.
But in order for kit launches to mirror fashion shows and chime with fashion people, they have to look a bit fashion-y, which is how we’ve ended up with the kit-launch-tuck.
Now, you could lean into the unnatural ick of a football shirt tucked into trousers being some kind of parable for modern professional football. About how it’s a cynical, undercooked attempt to grasp some kind of real-world charm as the mega clubs drift ever further away from a position of tangible authenticity. But really, it just looks weird. It’s an unwritten rule that only the most deranged dude on the team can tuck his shirt in. Your Scott Parkers of this world, your Adama Traorés.
Liverpool’s new home kit is inspired by a strip from the Seventies, so they’ve launched it tucked into flares. The away kit is inspired by one from the 90s, so they’ve got that one tucked into stonewash jeans. Young Trent Alexander-Arnold is standing there with a point-and-shoot film camera, poor lamb. The goddam lens cap’s still on!
In Manchester, apropos of nothing, City have have allowed Super Jacky Grealish to tuck his new home shirt into a pair of beige flares. The only thing that lad should be tucking into is all the tequila in the North of England, and he’s already done that.
Launched today, Chelsea's new home kit is inspired by the 90s, too. "25 years since our iconic 97/98 season where we took home the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup". (The word 'iconic' doing a lot of leg work, there.) The shoot, seemingly set in a teenage bedroom, features a Rubix Cube, a Gameboy and Roberto DiMatteo in a pair of alien sunglasses, which in truth is actually very cool. Has Enzo Fernandez tucked his shirt into a big pair of jeans? You bet your Britpop mixtape he has.
Truthfully, the relationship between footballers and fashion has blossomed. Not only have the two industries fostered a mutual respect – Grealish’s big Gucci deal, Pharrell’s football shirts at his first LV show, Alejandro Garnacho appearing on Balenciaga’s couture runway this week etc. – but a few players have genuine style, too. The big surprise of the recent round of menswear shows was Barcelona defender Jules Kounde, who looked to not just have an eye for good clothes, but a better eye than most of the press, influencers and buyers in attendance. He was at Wales Bonner (with David Alaba) in a sleeveless knit and Sambas, at LV in big pants and a half-zip... The guy recently went full-Prada schoolboy – shorts, loafers, tie; the lot – for the pre-game arrival at Camp Nou. Wonderful stuff, more of that please.
Maybe it would be better if the clubs let the players style themselves? Or maybe just get Jules Kounde to do it? Either way, there are more new kits to come, so we’ll see if the scourge of tucking continues. Arsenal, for example, have at least two more kits yet to drop, and one of them is bound to be wavy as heck. I dread the day they force poor Bukayo Saka into a pair of bootcuts and send him down the Holloway Road, but it could literally happen at any moment.
