My Case for Firing Every Kit Designer in France
By: Thomas | July 15th, 2010
What a team wears makes much more of a difference than many of you may think, in fact, the jersey of a team can be a primary reason for a prospective fan to develop an affinity. Watching the World Cup with relatives that know nothing of football brought me to this conclusion, as many of them decided to root for teams based on the merits in their eyes of the kits they wore. For instance, Argentina was widely supported by my American family based solely on their shirts. This is why it pains me so much to see the disgraceful rags that have this summer been offered by many a French club to their players. I’m sure you’ve all seen the horror that is the Lyon away jersey (above) but let me give you a preview as to what other teams will be wearing…
Lets look at the jerseys FC Lorient will be wearing this season as an example. “Oh but they can’t be worse than last season!” you say, well, see for yourselves:
That’s the home kit. It’s not horribly offensive, my critiques would be the B&B label which utterly clashes on this shirt along with the cluttering of text in different fonts in the upper third of the shirt. The tiger stripes creeping around the side are a little odd as well.
I find this away shirt horrible. Now it’s not just the B&B circle that clashes, but the red La Trinitaine label as well. On this one the tiger stripes are only on the left side (looking at it) which makes it so much worse.
The third kit: the climax of the Lorient design team’s horror movie. This one made me throw up in my mouth a little. I’m terribly sorry but this is too horrible for words.
Moving on let’s look at some selected atrocities from other clubs in the league…
The Rennes away jersey: skin tight prison garb with a collection of small trees on the right shoulder and a nice big sponsor that blends with the background.
The ASSE home jersey: the dullest shirt I’ve ever seen plus a nice cluster of sponsors on the chest and a “Funai” label on the rear end area.
The Marseille away jersey as modeled by Lucho Gonzalez. Your eyes are not deceiving you, it is indeed plaid. Looks like ugly swim suit pattern.
The Sochaux home jersey: looks like it came out of the mid 90’s, boring, clashing, just all around ugly. Most of these shirts have been overdesigned, This one is underdesigned.
The Nice third jersey: no words are necessary.
That’s all for now. If any of you are interested in seeing more horrible jerseys, leave a comment or shoot an email to france@theoffside.com.
Category: France Ligue 1, Lorient (FCLBS), Lyon (OL), Marseille (OM), Nice (OGCN), Rennes (SRFC), Saint-Étienne (ASSE), Sochaux (FCSM)
Comments
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Yeah, I don’t need to say anything about this article because you pretty much said it all
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What’s surprising about all this is that the French are supposed to be so attuned to what’s classy and tasteful fashion-wise — and they usually are. But yeah, these kits really are atrocious.
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Firstly it’s a bit of a slap in the face calling the symbol on the corner of the Rennes’ shirt a “collection of trees”, it’s a symbol on the region’s and city’s coat of arms.
Any chance of praising OM’s third kit and the anti-racist symbolism attached to it?
I dislike your argument that those “fans” supported Argentina because of their kit design, and then critisize teams’ away strips. The away strip is a chance to make money from fans by differentiating it from previous seasons’ away strips. They’ve done this.
I also think it’s a bit pithy criticising ASSE’s kit as boring, home strips should be a homage to the history of the club, and this does.
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Further to this, I do like Puma’s use of symbols in the top right corner of kits. Ghana’s black star with it’s Pan-African symbolism and Algeria’s Fennec (they symbol and nickname of the team) were highlights of the World Cup kits for me.
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t’OM: I’m sorry if I offended you in any way, but this post was written entirely in jest. I was in know way claiming that my non football following relatives were fans, as I believe I said in the post. This post was about the horrible kits I’ve seen, which is why I did not include OM third jersey, or the Nice home and away, the Nancy jerseys, etc.
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Hi Thomas, no dramas, I suppose it’s a bit ridiculous to care that much about what the team wears. I do fundamentally disagree with your thesis statement, but if it was meant in jest that’s my error. Carry on the good work.
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I agree that some jerseys are plain horrible, ex Lyon’s away kit & Nice’s third jersey.
But the others aren’t as awful as you make them out to be. They aren’t classics but they fit the acceptable category for me.
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Ha good stuff. I actually think the kits aren’t that horrible. Let us think back to the 1980s and early 1990s and some of the awful kits that were rolled out then. I remember the OM kit with some strange 3/4 length baggy sleeve…here are some other “classics” http://bleacherreport.com/articles/160160-10-worst-football-kits-of-all-time#page/11
I think the OL stripe is okay MUCH better than that black faded to orange faded to vomit kit they wore last year…
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Hey, just for kicks, I’d like to mention that Puma did an amazing job with Bordeaux’s kits this season.
You know, just putting that out there.
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