Looking at these strange figures, it’d be reasonable to ask, ‘what do these strange figures have to do with football?’ And the answer would be – nothing. However, when you consider that these figures are taken from a design exhibition by Aitor Throup, the man behind the new England Away kit, they suddenly become a lot more interesting to us football fans.

They’re taken from Legs, a retrospective of trousers designed by Aitor between 2004 and 2010. A Royal College Of Art graduate, Aitor specialises in garments that take functionality to a higher level, designing items around the body shapes of his subjects and creating unorthodox ergonomic models based on his illusionary sketches. The trousers on his models in these pictures have been designed using the same techniques as the new England Away kit – check out the seams, the way they fit to the models and the understated colours and tones, and you can see the links to the world of football.

Legs was recently exhibited in both Paris and London during their fashion weeks, and proved to be a big talking point. And, from the response so far, it seems that the England Away kit will be just as popular!

Art and football might not be the type of thing you see together all that often, but they were certainly getting up close and personal recently at Umbro’s design studio in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. That’s because the Royal College of Art were in town, displaying some of the ideas they came up with for a project developed in conjuction with Umbro.

Last year, Umbro asked students at the College to come up with ideas based around sport, technology and Britishness, with the results being understandably varied. The best projects were developed and displayed at the Dale Street studio recently, and it’s these ideas which feature in this Flickr gallery we’ve put together. Obviously, these ideas are a long way from the football shirts and sportswear that we put onto the pitch, but there are some links between the two oif you look close enough. Whether it’s football boots produced using the same technique as that which goes into making cars, or jumpers that make it easier to explain the offside rule, this collection from the RCA underlines just how much football is ingrained into our culture.

Here’s the latest installment from Rob, our man in Umbro’s Design Studio:

“Boxing Day 2004.  That was the date when Southampton v Charlton Athletic was last a Premier League fixture.  Yet as I type this they’re playing each other in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, a competition you have to be in the lower divisions to be able to play in.  Fans of both clubs would never have imagined such a downturn in their fortunes, but they’re still soldiering on and hoping for a bright future.

If you’re supporting Southampton or Charlton in this match you’re most likely as anxious about the result as you were the corresponding Premier League fixture less than 5 years ago.  It’s a matter of pride.  Players, managers and seasons come and go, but the fans carry on regardless.  It’s something we’re passionate about too, here in the design team at Umbro Towers. Pride. Pride in the badge, pride in the colours, pride in the result.

Whenever you pull on the shirt, you feel proud (or at least you should!) and that manifests itself in your performance on the pitch and your fervour in the stands, in front of the TV or next to the radio.  With this in mind we aim to bring notions of pride to the design and trigger this all-important emotion every time that shirt comes into the equation.  Whether it’s referencing an important historical moment for the team in question, or making more of important elements from the culture of the club and its identity, we aim to resonate with fans and players alike on exactly the same level.

Emotion is an important part of the footballing experience – a weekend can be depressing because of a bad result or amazing because of a good one.  A summer can be spent dreading the new season if your team is under-strength or full of hope and excitement about seeing new signings strut their stuff.  How football makes you feel is one of the main things that attracts us in the first place and keeps us coming back for more.

It’s the same thing with clothing design in that it evokes an emotion and gives you a feeling – a sense of pride, of style, of confidence.  The essence of classical tailoring is that through the fit, fabric, construction and everything that goes into a great suit you feel fantastic when you wear it.  It’s not such a great departure from how you feel when you pull on your team’s shirt.  Another thing suits and football shirts have in common is that whilst there is always underlying pride in the garment itself, the occasion can vary. How do you feel wearing your shirt to the pub straight after a derby-day victory or wearing a suit on your wedding day?  (You don’t all have to answer that one!) How do you feel wearing that same football shirt on the morning of a game when you just know it’s not going to be your day? Suits aren’t always worn on the happy occasions too…

Having originally been a tailoring company ourselves it’s an inspiration to the designers that we can draw that link between emotion and the products we’re designing, just like a tailor would. We’ll be doing even more of it in the future – that’s part of the ethos of Football Tailoring.

On the subject of emotion, let us also spare a thought for the friends and family of German international Robert Enke who sadly took his own life on Tuesday.  I had the pleasure of seeing for myself what a fantastic goalkeeper he was, and by all accounts he was a great guy too.  Some people say that football is a matter of life and death.  There are times however, when that is put into sharp perspective.

See you next month, Rob.”

As we have collected and displayed the huge Umbro kit archive here and on our flickr page, it has become very clear that our readers love football kits as much as we do. Everything from colours, prints and badges come under the spotlight but one thing that is constantly at the root of questioning is if, and how, the replica shirts the fans buy are different from those worn by the players. We have finally done something about the uncertainty and asked a couple of people in the know. Two people who can provide a definitive answer are Kevin and Sarah who help develop fabrics for those kits you and the players wear.

Let’s start with what Sarah had to say:

I think we could safely say that what the players wear is what is on sale in the shops. There may be some slight differences such as sometimes the Players shirt will have a different embroidery or other application than the shirt that goes in the shops. I think we have prided ourselves on delivering to the customer what the players are getting , the fabric is definitely the same for both. I know that’s not true of other brands but we like to pride ourselves on that fact.

Normally, we would feel this was fair enough, but we may have had a tip-off… ‘What about the England shirt that had the silver in it?’ we asked:

Ah! You got me on that one! That was a new technology (X-static) we decided to introduce into the new England away shirt. It had anti-microbial properties and it had a very exciting cattle-prod type tool that demonstrated the fact that there was metal in the fabric which I think sold it to us all!

We did do a player’s shirt that was fully X-static whereas in the retail version there were zonal areas that we had identified as being the areas where it needed to be X-static. I’d say that was one of the only jerseys that we did that had a difference and that was purely a cost issue because it was very expensive to produce. We just couldn’t afford to put it in a retail piece.

We were quite happy to go away with this amount of information, but Kevin let us in on another kit that had differences between what the players wore and what was seen in retail. Once again, it concerned an England kit from 2003-05 (picture at top of post) but the reason for why there ended up being two versions left us laughing for quite a while…

We did a reversible home shirt that had blue stripes on the inside which was technically brilliant, the first white reversible football jersey. The one that the players wore didn’t end up having the stripes. That was because David [kit designer] took it home and had a shower in it and the stripes were visible through the fabric. Don’t ask me why – or about his methods – but that’s what he did. It paid off though because it stopped us giving the kit to the players and the blue being visible through the white in the rain.

So that settles it. With few exceptions the Umbro players shirts are the same as the replica shirts that are sold in the shops.

Blimey – it’s big isn’t it, this Internet?  I thought that volunteering to be blasted off into cyberspace would be a pleasant affair, but once you get in front of a blank sheet of paper it becomes a bit tricky to think of what to write.  Perhaps I’d be better off sticking to drawing pictures?

That, after all, is the real reason why I’m here.  I’m Rob Warner, and I joined Umbro a month ago as Design Director.  I’m leading the design team for our performance football clothing, including England, and am over the proverbial moon to be here.  As usual in these circumstances I’ve developed “Responsibility Tourettes” and volunteered to contribute to the blog on a monthly basis, airing my thoughts on all manner of things from design through to football.  Well, pretty much those two things really.  That’s what you’ll most likely want to read about from me, what with you all being dedicated followers of Fashanu.

My day-to-day job involves working through trend, colour, graphics and of course the performance needs of all parties concerned (namely the clubs and players of this most beautiful of games), and people often remind me how lucky I am to be able to make a career out of something I love.  I agree, and thought that the blog would be a great forum to give you some insights into what we do as a design team and how we do it, as well as offering you the chance to give us some feedback and input of your own.  Let’s face it – just like football, everyone’s got an opinion on design.

I’m sure if you asked the designers they’d say that I spend all day in meetings and only appear at my desk when one of them is about to make a brew.  Nothing wrong with that, though.  Michael Owen’s all about being in the right place at the right time too.  So long as we as a team design the best football product we possibly can then we can all go home happy, and being privy to the work which is going on here at Umbro Towers it’s fair to say we’re all feeling pretty happy at the moment.  The current England home shirt is for me one of our best ever, even if my favourite is the one from Italia 90 – evoking memories of Gazza’s tears, Waddle’s mullet and David Platt’s incredulous volley against Belgium.

We’ve been involved in some pretty scary kits in the past too, though, and I’ll be doing my best to make sure that the crimes of the 80s and 90s don’t get repeated in a hurry.  Unless it’s in a trendy “fashion-irony” kinda way, of course.  But love them or hate them, our kits have been involved in some of the most memorable and poignant moments of football history and they’ll continue to be playing a key role in football present and future too.  I’m lucky enough to have seen one of my designs win the World Cup and that’s an amazing memory for me.  If England lift the trophy next summer, even though I arrived after it was designed and would be basking in reflected glory, it’d still be up there as one of my proudest moments – both as an Umbro employee and an Englishman.

For now, though, it’s back to creating our part in magical football moments that are yet to come – whether it’s Darren Bent scoring a last minute winner for Sunderland or you ‘megging Steve from Accounts in the weekly 5-a-side.  It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.  And I really don’t think I’m cut out for being a milkman like my Dad was…

See you next month, Rob.

Name: Stephen

How long have you been at Umbro?

Just over 3 months officially, but I was working for about 6 weeks before that on various freelance bits and bobs for Umbro.

What do you do at Umbro?

I’m a bit complicated… I manage the design space on Dale St, which is split into 3 sections; The design studio, where we design all of Umbro Sportwear apparel. An exhibition space where we curate all things football. And the exchange, where we will sell the hard to find, limited edition and the best of Umbro product. But I’m also a designer. I design the majority of graphics for Umbro Sportswear, and I design apparel for the premium commercial sector. I also answer the phone.

What would other people say you did ?

Eat sandwiches

Where do you see Umbro going?

As the leader in British sportswear and the pinnacle brand in football.

Favourite Umbro garment?

My first football kit, the 1988-1990 Chelsea away kit… mint green. Matt and shine jacquard shorts with tonal grey rectangles… Dope.

Least favourite Umbro garment?

Anything with the laced up collar… Yuk!

What’s your most memorable football experience?

Accidentally on purpose kicking a lad in the shin, and his mum running on the pitch chasing me down to slap me round the head… Life changing experience.

What were you doing before Umbro?

I worked for Magma Design Ltd. designing and managing their t-shirt and tote bag range. And sold my skills to whoever would take them…

What inspires you?

Coffee and cigarettes.

Did you got to design school?

Nope, self edumacated.

The Speciali competition to design your own boot is nearing three thousand entries (I think we’re actually on 2979 but I lost count).  That’s a lot, which is great.  But what we’ve loved is seeing how the submitted designs reflect different styles, reminiscent of skateboard decks and surfboards, from commentary on life and sport to plain weird s***.

As an example let’s look at some of the designs from the last few weeks:

‘Adebayor’ it’s called, can’t think why   Then there’s this one from the previous week:

This time Arsenal get the boot

Then there’s stuff like this, which is just genius.

And the earlier work inspired by Marvel comics (and probably coinciding with Disney’s purchase of them).

A nod toward the Football Casuals of the 80s here:

And a classic modernist piece, which Bridget Riley would have been proud of:

This is perhaps the most thoughtful design and says so much about the type of engagement most of us have with football now:

Brilliant.  And, lastly, what better way to go sliding into a 50-50 challenge than to take your fan club with you, the teenage crush etched to your sole:

You can submit your design to the competition. Umbro, Esquire and and UK designer Stuart Semple will be creating a shortlist from which John Terry, Michael Owen and Gael Clichy will be choose their favourite designs which Umbro will make for them to wear.

See the whole set on flickr and let us know which you like best.

Earlier this week we delved into our archive to bring you some kits that have made us laugh and cry. Amongst that batch was the infamous Manchester United grey kit, from the 95-96 season. Famously, after going 3-0 down, the team switched kits at HT during their match against Southampton. The players blamed their poor performance on the kit, they said they couldn’t see it – so they couldn’t see each other.

Many laughed at them (as well as the kit), surely they could concede they had an off day (after the kit change they still lost 3-1, just so you know)? One person who definitely didn’t laugh, though, was one of our kit designers – not because he designed it, mind. He offered an explanation to why that kit really wasn’t very good.

As is obvious, you need to have intense looking kits in order to ensure high visibility - maybe all of those day-glo kits aren’t so bad. Grey as a kit colour isn’t a problem, either. I was told “it was just that particular grey was made from a combination of colours, it was more like layers of grey – much like white noise on a television.” This meant it had “a similar visual to the crowd in the stands, it was almost camouflage; you were looking straight through it.” In a word, the kit was: distracting.

Ironically, United’s misfortune was a blessing for goalkeeper kit design. People started to think that a visually distracting pattern would work in favour of ‘keepers. I’m not particularly sure if it has but it’s a nice sentiment.

This weekend the Premier League finally kicks-off. We, for one, are really looking forward to what lies ahead and, in particular, to seeing our six Premier league clubs running out in their Umbro kits. Above, you can see six of the Umbro Design Department showing off the kits for the season ahead. Here’s a little more about them and their involvement in the kits:

Name/Kit/Role: Danielle, Manchester City (home), Developer of the MCFC ‘09 kits and associated training package.

Involvement in kit: I developed the garments after receiving the designs, working on all aspects such as making sure the colour is right, as well as construction and fit of the garments. I progressed the range from prototype through to the finished article.

Dream kit – already done or yet to be done? I loved working on the MCFC ‘09 project as it was such a new and exciting range for Umbro and I am proud to say that I was involved with such a successful, and well received, collection. If Umbro ever had the contract then I’d love to work on an international kit such as Brazil, as a little research trip to Rio would go down a treat!

Name/Kit/Role: James, Blackburn Rovers (home), Designer.

Involvement in kit: I created the concept for the 2009 Blackburn kit; researched and built up a story that delves into the traditions of the club but kept it contemporary  by utilising modern fabrics and techniques. I also met with the players, coaching staff, commercial team and kit man to gather insight on the performance side of what a kit needs to achieve on the pitch. Along with that, I created artworks for the crest, sponsors and trim details – making sure they were within FA and Premier League regulations, and finally worked with our great technical team to get the final product.

Dream kit – already done, or yet to be done? I have worked on a lot of teams in my time here so I can say I have done my dream kit. My favourite one was the Blackburn Rovers red/black halved away in 07/08. Ireland is also one that gives me a great deal of pride to create so that is in there. I don’t think I could pick a dream kit that I would like to do as there are several, but it would probably be between Scotland because of Umbro’s legacy and history with the national team; Celtic because of their tradition and iconic style; and Real Madrid because of the clean simplicity of the all white.

Name/Kit/Role: Ruth, West Ham United (home), Development Technician.

Involvement in kit: I didn’t actually work on these kits as I didn’t start until March this year.

Dream kit – already done, or yet to be done? I don’t really have a ‘dream kit’ but I do think Barcelona are commendable for their commitment to charity, and wearing the UNICEF logo on their shirts. Also, I’m led to believe it’s quite a nice city and worth a visit!

Name/Role: Robin, Birmingham City (home), Licensed Apparel Product Line Merchandiser

Involvement in the kit: My involvement with the kit is working with our Design Team to formalise the design direction for any given season; and on completion, for then to work with the sales team together with the guys that look after the clubs to ensure the kit delivers the aesthetic the club have bought into.

Dream kit – already done, or yet to be done? Regarding a dream kit to work on, as the top team in England I’d have to say that the Man United kit would be the best. But, with years of playing in a half built stadium, I think it’s about time Halifax Town got some preferential treatment.

Name/Role: Susan, Sunderland FC (home), Development Technician

Involvement in kit: Unfortunately I didn’t work on the jerseys as I have only been with the company a few months. I am currently working on training wear for Sunderland, amongst other clubs, for next season.

Dream kit – already done, or yet to be done? If I had to pick a dream kit to work on, it would be the Scotland Jersey. Hopefully, in the future, Umbro will make their kits again!

Name/Role: Dan, Hull City (home). I design apparel for all types of football from small sided to 11 a side training product. My role involves a lot of research directly from players and consumers every bit of info they give us goes straight back into the clothing we design for them.

Involvement in kit: Unfortunately I didn’t work on the Hull shirt but as I say a lot of the research we do for training product is picked up for kit and vice versa.  Ultimately players benefit from wearing a similar product for training as they do on the pitch, it stops anything from feeling or performing differently on match day.

Dream kit – already done, or yet to be done? If I could choose any kit to work on it would have to be the England kit, its the Golden goose of kit design a lot of pressure but definitely worth it. However on the other hand I wouldn’t mind giving the Millwall home kit a go.

To all the dedicated bloglins…

Alongside Tom and Sharan I will be posting regularly on all things football. Covering all topics creative based… from graphic design, art, and photography to fashion and music.

I hold fort at the Dale St. design studio… and will keep you up to date on all that I see. There’s some incredible things coming out of here… keep your eyes open

Stephen