ursus arctos wrote:

QUOTE:
New Barca kits; I prefer the away to the home:

Yes. With the home kit, it looks like they 'started too big and ran out of room' while doing the stripes!

The first kit is a Basel tribute, I presume?

Don't knock it; Basel won something last season . . .

I presume the red is nowhere near that bright in person (or else I am really going to be cross).

I'm not a fan of that new Barcelona home kit. I'd prefer the normal stripes - particularly the style used in the CL winning kit.

Just a word on the book True Colours - I know a lot of people own it on here, but I finally bought versions 1&2 at the weekend. Hell, it's a phenomenal piece of work. I'd seen book 1 in the shops when it came out, but I think I refused to buy it on the basis that Coventry weren't included. I also kind of assumed that it was mostly pictures, how wrong! The amount of detail that the author puts into each kit is fantastic. I feel like a scoundrel now when I admit that the books only cost £5 each in a bargain bookshop at a discount shopping village.

You are a lucky man.

I also much prefer the stripes, and hope this is a short term variation from the norm. The one issue it does hopefully address is the sartorial faux pax of the not extending the stripes to the back of the Champions League jersey.

The away kit would be ace without the swoosh or the unicef logo, the latter in particular creates a bit of clash with the club crest.

It is, btw, an update/hommage to this classic:

This is our new shirt sponsor ;

http://www.vansdirect.co.uk/

and our change kit is apparently registered as "mulberry" (which I take to be the deep claret colour Joma have used before with Sevilla's change kit).

I fear it is not going to be a vintage season, aesthetically.

If they put "Tommy" on the shirts, I'm going to have you put on suicide watch . . .

The estimable 200 percent of this parish is publishing capsule reviews of this season's kits for each of the clubs in England's top four divisions.

Part One here.

The interplay between the admirably wide stripes and the horribly ill-conceived collar on that WBA number makes my eyes hurt.

BTW, there are increasingly loud rumours here that Inter may go with an "all chocolate" away kit this season. I still can't believe that Nike has convinced them that this would be a good thing.

Herr Mondschein's worst fears realised:

Giving 200%'s excellent review (part two) a bump


Even though this ;



strikes fear in to my heart in anticipation of the same manufacturers new Wales kit 9though we can't share the worst elelments, the badge and sponsor's logo).

When are you doing the Football League teams, 200%?

Also, I don't know if you know but Portsmouth have also dropped the white shorts and red socks and will be turning out in a Euro 2008 style all-blue strip next season.

Speaking of which, I wondered on one of the Euro 2008 threads what the possible marketing advantage of the various nations' one-colour strips were and this theory (from Richard Williams in The Guardian) seems plausible;

QUOTE:
Something similar must have been behind the decision to give the players of Italy and France blue shorts to wear with their blue shirts in international competitions. Their traditional strips stipulated white shorts, a far more pleasing combination. The reason for this, it seems to me, is that since kids can add any old pair of white shorts to a replica shirt and look OK, only a change to a completely matching strip can persuade them to buy the officially produced shorts as well, in order to achieve complete authenticity. It's a dirty business.

Not sure that logic quite holds up, does it?

It's the most convincing (ie, only) explanation I have seen for the switch of kits to one block of colour.

If the shorts are the same colour as the shirt you have to match the exact shade to make it looks authentic but you generally only get one shade of white it's easier to (relatively closely) replicate the real kit without buying the exact replica shorts.

But hasn't this also resulted in some teams changing to white shorts?

I can't recall but I'm happy to be reminded. There is the Bolton/Spurs white short switches but again this is a switch to one colour and I think this is for similar reasons of trying to get people to buy "matching" replca shirts and shorts (although that's obviously less to do with the shade of it, I'll concede).

I think a more likely explanation is that the governing bodies are getting too fussy about providing contrast, and they believe white/blue/white vs blue/white/blue doesn't provide that.

I don't think the replica shorts market is, or will ever be, big enough, to hold much sway.