Today’s request comes from Jay from Design Football, who wished to see a reworking of the third-kit style given to Nike’s top teams in 2015-16.
While we remember the Vapor style given exposure at Euro 2016 as pushing the boat in terms of contrasting socks, that shows how much of a shop window a major tournament is, as well as show how changed to primary kits are noticed more than second or third strips.
Nike had in fact road-tested the Vapor concept, including the stripes down the side of the body and on to the shorts, the previous season with five clubs.
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It was a follow-on from the uniform design approach given to the company’s major contracts in 2014-15. The inspiration appears to was highlighter pens, apart from Roma’s grey, which looks to have been taken from the she-wolf on their crest.
For those five – and Paris Saint-Germain, who had an all-black third kit in a slightly different design, and Atlético Madrid, who didn’t have a third strip but probably needed one – Jay felt that it would be worth trying black kits that utilised the club colours as accents.
As Galatasaray’s 2015-16 away pretty much did that already, we went for a white kit for them, while Atlético’s navy away meant we opted for red in their case, the colour often used as a change kit in the past. Manchester City had a black away and so maroon is choice for them.
While the real kits kept the halftone effect and the side stripes black, we have taken licence to fit teams’ colours in. Equally, the alternate-colour socks Jay requested would be unlucky to fly with Uefa – Galatasaray’s home-kit publicity featured them but they never appeared on the pitch.
As ever, feedback is welcome, along with requests for future FKFs – comment below or tweet @museumofjerseys.