It sounds like a trick question, and of course it is – when did a club follow a kit that lasted six years with one that lasted for eight years?
While Paris Saint-Germain are the French league club most associated with Nike, the swoosh adorned the Monaco kit from 1988-90.
When they returned to adidas, the design was similar to that provided by Nike. On the left is the 1990-91 kit and on the right is the 1995-96 offering – apart from sponsors, the only change to the shirt was the altering of the adidas logo as well as incorporating a new fabric pattern.
Finally, a change came in 1996 as the Princess Grace-designed diagonal halves were now housed in a rectangle.
This season saw the the addition of yet more sponsors in the league…
…while there were three other variations – from left to right, Coupe de France, Coupe de la Ligue (with crest on the right) and Uefa Cup.
That adidas design proved to be the last before Monaco switched to Kappa in 1998. However, with adidas kits still having to be used in the Coupe de France – resulting in some interesting PSG outfits over the years – the last adidas design remained in use by Monaco until the end of the 2003-04 season. The kit on the left is the last version to be used.
The adidas-only rule came to an end in 2006, with a new but rather bland teamwearish kit (right) used by Monaco in the cup the final two seasons.
It remains the club’s final adidas strip, with Kappa replaced by Puma in 2001 before the club joined forces with Macron for a four-year period beginning in 2010. Nike took over the manufacture of the kit in 2014, with Kappa returning this summer.
Wait . . . Princess Grace designed the Monaco kit? 🤯
The eight year kit almost had a Premier League life as well. To ‘celebrate’ having Glenn Hoddle as manager, the design (without Adidas markings) was one of five choices that us Southampton fans could vote upon in the early 2000s to be our new kit. Someone in the Saints marketing team purchased the shirt, crudely took off the markings and put a Saints badge on it, and a photo appeared in the match programme and the local paper, while a mascot dressed in the fudged shirt modelled it at an end of season game, accompanying four other mocked up and more traditionally looking potential Southampton shirts. The Monaco version was widely jeered at, and despite a voting campaign by Portsmouth fans, it finished well down the list. This was fortunate; the man who the shirt honoured soon left to take the managers position at Spurs.