Like tennis, fencing and S&M, one wears the right gear when one plays rugby. But for some time, it was only posh boys with thick forearms and thicker heads that wore rugby gear off-pitch. That whole Big Strapping Lad shtick wasn't particularly cool. Then it was. On the back of the Prep 2.0 thing a couple of years back – the trend in which we started to dress like a UES trustfunder with a demanding father – the rugby shirt returned, and it has stuck around ever since.
Some could say it's even reached ubiquity. Guys who aren't called Rupert or Freddy wear them now too. That's a good thing. But this New Prep doesn't feel particularly new, and it's taken a shot in the arm from YMC's latest collab with Umbro to reinvigorate rugby once more.
The 13-piece collection, released today, is directly inspired by Umbro founder Harold Humphrey's personal mantra: "look smart, play smart". And smart it is. Track jackets have undergone a cosy boy, Seventies-tinged makeover, with a funnel neck, roomy fit and a letterman pocket. Button down, spring green jackets feel more Keble College circa 1942 than Dover Street Market. Then, of course, there's the rugby shirts: still crisp as ever, but now patchwork, or in an aloha print, and far from the public school dress code.
It's all good stuff, and YMC sought to reinvent the rugby thing by revisiting its roots. "I disagree with the thinking that preppy feels American," the brand's co-founder Fraser Moss tells Esquire. "The rugby shirt may've been adopted back in the Sixties, but this is a truly British design that's been ingrained in our culture from way before that. What distinguishes this collaboration is its authenticity" – and a totally new way of approaching the rugby shirt. "It'd be pointless for us to take this design literally," says Moss. "So, we put it through the YMC blender which involved big prints, or twisting the details and the silhouette."
Umbro is also a genuine actor here. While the British sportswear giant has long been associated with football, Moss goes to great pains to highlight its rugby pedigree: "Umbro has been manufacturing the rugby shirt for nearly 100 years now." Which is a very long time. What's more, it's been the go-to for some of our most local teams. "Umbro's supported each one of the rugby home nations in the past, and we were there with the Lions during the famous tour of New Zealand in '71," says Jason Fairclough, the brand director of Umbro's parent group, GLD Group. "It's still the only time the Lions have won a series there."
YMC on the wing was always a natural formation for Fairclough. "In a funny way, we have quite similar outlooks, and this was apparent in early conversations," he tells Esquire. "There's a real sense of style and tailoring and, most important, irreverence." He then echoes another mantra from another Umbro founding father: "There are three things that constitute the ability to succeed: enthusiasm, tenacity and sheer damned cheek – but all in good measure."
Because there is a sense of fun here. In YMC, it's the very un-classic reworking of very classic pieces, like a chore jacket in teddy bear fabric, or the Cuban collar shirts cut from nana's tablecloth, or, indeed, the Honolulu rugby shirts. For Umbro, it's the nostalgia, a sense of greatness that comes with designing some of the best sporting kits known to man (nirvana is: Everton's chaotic, monochromatic away kit of 1994).
So is this New New Prep? Anglo-Prep? Euphoria High at the local Yorkshire comprehensive? It's none of those things, because, at its core, YMC x Umbro is old school prep through and through: fun, boyish, sporty, witty and slightly eccentric. It doesn't get more British than that.
YMC x Umbro is available today at youmustcreate.com, priced from £110
