Football Kits In Fashion

Taking a look at a collection of my favorite kits from Palace since 2012.

Football kits in fashion have been a thing since time, and more recently the heat on them has been cranked all the way up to 10 with the help of a variety of trends. Pulling a fit off while supporting your favorite club is always the move, but what if you don’t want to dive into the politics and want to remain neutral while still rocking some sort of kit? Luckily there are a variety of brands that are pumping out their own version of football-esque kits that will keep you looking fly without the need of pissing off your homies because you’re supporting a rival club.

I recently stumbled upon a selection of kits from Palace that really grabbed my attention, and before I knew it I was knee-deep into their archive trying to collect every interesting kit to see how they hold up in today’s fashion world. In today’s newsletter, I wanted to show you more or less every single football and football-adjacent pieces that Palace has released since 2012ish to today.

The goal is to compile all of them in one place for everyone to enjoy and maybe even turn this into a thing that I can continue to update as they drop new styles in the future.

Before we start it off I was trying to decide if I should call it soccer or football, and I ended up with football… european fellas, our time is now!

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WHAT STARTED IT ALL

I’m chronically online, which means that I’m constantly looking around at new and old clothing just to keep a fresh perspective on things—I love stumbling on old pieces that may have not had the same impact when they first dropped, and Palace’s kit collection from Summer 2020 is one of those collections that made me decide to make this newsletter in the first place.

Multi Option Footie Jersey - Summer 2020

Now, I need to be clear about something. I have decent knowledge when it comes to football, but I definitely might not recognize a kit reference to an actual club, so for that I do apologize. Either way, when I saw these kits a light went off in my head that wanted to see more.

Currently, I’m a fan of tops that kind of have a lot going on, whether its graphics, various colors, text, or all of the above. Palace has created a crazy selection of jerseys throughout the years that check off all those boxes for me. Below are just some of my favorites that grabbed my attention as I was going through their archive.

From top to bottom - The first 3 jerseys dropped in Winter 2020, named Playwright Shirt, next two are the Persailles Football Top that dropped in Spring 2020, next two are the Zomby Top that dropped for Ultimo 2021 , and the last 3 are the Cosy Top from Summer 2021.

Now I know that that this is mainly a football kit themed newsletter, but I’m going to break my own rules because some of the bike jerseys that Palace has are also hot and deserve to be mentioned today — they kind of share vibes similar to the football kits, and because of that I think the whole thing just ties together well.

From top to bottom — first two are the Tour De Force jersey that is part of the Summer 2023 collection, next two are the One Eighty Top from Spring 2020, and the last two are a past version of the Tour De Force from Autumn 2020.

As I go through the archive I’m reminded off many different items, one being the Legends shirt that dropped in Autumn 2022. This one is more on the simpler side in comparison to what we’ve looked at so far in today’s newsletter, and maybe that’s a good thing — I will say, I was not the biggest fan of the whole mythology theme that was highlighted on the back, but it’s not the end of the world. The shirts still slapped.

I’ve come to the realization that one of my favorite football-adjacent pieces from Palace have to be the Palazzo knits — dropped twice, once in 2017 and 2022, these take direct references from Inter Milan, and Juventus.

Something about a long sleeve football knits that just gets me going — these specific ones from Palace are absolute grails that will forever hold their value in my opinion. With that being said, there are a few other long sleeve knits that kind of share that football kit vibe—we can make the argument that these aren’t really kits, and you might be right, but I’m going to enjoy them regardless.

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This more or less concludes the jerseys that came out of the regular collections. I know that there are a few that I probably missed, but it is what it is. Now it’s time to look at collaborations that brought us many other favorites. From Umbro all the way to Gucci, Palace has continued to put its effort in providing a variety of styles to choose from. Some with a bigger story than others, but regardless they are all great in their own unique way.

Personal team rivalries aside, the fact that Palace pulled off an official Juventus collab is pretty crazy to me, and even though the jerseys aren’t all that different from the traditional Juventus kits, it was still a special moment for the brand that will live on forever.

Palace’s relationship with Adidas goes all the way back to 2015 (Might be even earlier, but I cannot confirm this). Although these might not classify as football kits, or maybe they are and I’m just tripping, but I believe they are close enough in vibes to be grouped in today’s newsletter. I won’t lie, I am not dying over the designs that I highlighted down below, but with that being said, I do enjoy the SunPal capsule jerseys that dropped in Summer of 2020.

We can’t forget Umbro, one of my personal jersey makers in general to be honest. Most of the stuff they do is pretty simple in terms of the designs, and I think that’s what I enjoy about them. Correct me if I’m wrong, but they have only come together to make jerseys with Umbro twice, once in 2012 and once in 2022 — The first 5 jerseys shown below are from the 2022 collection, while the bottom two are from 2012. The photos of the 2012 collection are actually the official ones that you can find on the Palace website, a how it started vs how it’s going type beat.

Gucci x Palace may be one of the brands biggest moments so far, and of course they had to come correct with a set of jerseys. Even though they aren’t really attainable for the average joe, we can still take a moment to appreciate the wildness that is Gucci and Palace all mashed up into one.

Although not confirmed, the word on the street is that the inspiration for this set was taken from various teams like Italy National Team, CD Pinzón, and Chelsea. While I don’t mind the designs themselves, I don’t know if I really enjoyed the cut on these—they run really long, something that’s not really my vibe at the moment. But nonetheless, the designs were fun and offered something different across the three pieces.

I had to save the best for last, at least in my opinion. When it comes to ranking collaborative kits, I think that the recent Y-3 collaboration takes the cake above all other collaborative kits specifically. Definitely one of those pieces that I regret sleeping on… although maybe I could try to locate it on the secondary market, but something tells me the prices will be through the roof.

Just like that, we’ve gone through most if not almost all of the football and football-adjcescent kits that are offered by Palace. I’m sure that I missed a few here and there, and if that is the case make sure to drop a comment below so we can keep this discussion going! Definitely need to up my neutral jersey game, or cop me a Zinchenko jersey ;)