With another season upon us, Puma have given us three more
shirts. I feel like musician Danny Elfman said it best in his Oingo Boingo
song, “Grey Matter”: “You’ll swallow anything that they shove down your
throat.” This is possibly true of all football kits, as there is an
immediate attachment to the club, the colors, and your heroes who will be
wearing them, so it doesn’t really matter if the kits are good or bad, fans
will buy them. And that is certainly what Puma are counting on here.
 |
| Just do a search for fashion from 1969, it's not a great starting point |
As a preface, I’m aware that you people as a collective have
little to no fashion sense, I’ve seen you at the stadiums and on social media. It's just a fact. As
for me, I am coming from a background and a degree in fashion design, and I actually do care what the kits look like. In addition to pleasing aesthetics and
good overall design, I look for practical things such as construction and
comfort. Because not only do I want to look good repping my team anywhere from
the grocery store to the stadium, I want to do it comfortably. But most
importantly, I want my players to be comfortable, and I don’t want design to distract from or get in the way of great football.
 |
| We've seen it in action, what a way to cheapen even the best performances |
The First Kit
The club initially launched this kit as the “Legacy of 1969.”
While I don’t mind flashing back 50 years for inspiration, fashion was absolutely
terrible in 1969 and it was not a good place for them to go. The thin stripes
are a choice. Most people love them or hate them, but in spite of having them
attached to certain wins in the past, they do not scream “football.” The actual
colors of red and black are cheap and tacky. There is a tiny, insignificant
Diavolo logo at the center back of the neck that is like an afterthought, it
would only be noticeable up close and in person. The one redeeming factor in
this kit is that it is simple, with a crew neck, but Puma have to screw even
that up with poor fit and construction. Look at the way the crew neck sags
around the players’ necks when they wear it. Even if you could consider it good
design, Puma’s poor execution ruins it all.
 |
| This is the best we've got, and it's not great |
The Away Kit
By far the best of the three, possibly just for the v-neck
alone, it’s still not great. While the nod to the Italian flag at the center
back neck is fabulous, that’s about it. There are wide stripes on the shoulder,
one red, one black, that are screened on, floating, and do nothing/go nowhere.
Other than to provide a place for two more Puma logos, of course. The colors of the stripes are wrong and look tacky, while the dolman sleeves (just go with it, it’s
fashion speak,) are wasted because of the giant floating swatches of the wrong
colors of red and black. Oh yeah, this was the kit I liked most. But hey, one
good thing about all of these kits is the font for the players’ names and
numbers on the back. At least we’ve finally returned to a respectable font.
 |
| Exploding with... well it's exploding, anyway |
The Third Kit
I believe I said it on a recent podcast, but if I wanted to
pay $100 for a polyester t-shirt with a tacky design, I’d buy the third kit. It’s
as if red fireworks exploded on the black background, but only on the front
panel, of course. While it also boasts the Italian flag motif at the center
back of the neck, which is very nice, that might be the only redeeming thing about
it. That, and the fact that it’s otherwise an all-black, crew neck 100%
polyester t-shirt. With some fireworks for good measure. Again, the Puma fit
ruins all. Although at least there are black shorts for the players to
potentially wear with this one. Heaven knows that with Puma’s poor fit and
particularly sheer white shorts, we’ve gotten to know a little too much about
our players this past year. Except Puma even screwed up all of the shorts, they’re
just a little too long, and have a tiny stripe of color at the bottom of each
leg, one color for each leg. (insert facepalm here)
 |
| Of women, bullfighting, and Borini... the bolero training kit |
Training Kits
A special shoutout to the training kits. While typically
hideous, Puma have gone for a specific level of hideousness this year, by
ruining perfectly good, solid jerseys with an awful print only in the shape of
a bolero jacket. A bolero jacket is a women’s short, open jacket, usually used
with formal wear. While it was inspired by a bullfighter’s uniform, it is more reminiscent
of a clown costume when our players train in it. The players wear the red
version, which is all kinds of wrong, given that the red printed “bolero” part
of the kit looks like it doesn’t match the solid red of the rest of the kit.
The goalkeepers get to wear the black version, while the staff wear the white.
Please don’t buy this and wear this. Unless you are a legit bullfighter,
because it would ward off even the most angry of bulls, if they don’t just
outright laugh at you.
 |
| At least the font is good |
All of the kits have been marketed with the phrase “The Roar
of Milan.” When they say “roar,” I picture a sad, scrawny, homeless kitten who has been
through a few street fights and barely survived. Certainly not what our ferocious
players deserve to be dressed in. Poor design made so much worse by cheap
fabrics, colors, and prints as well as atrocious cut and fit, it’s really a
shame our players have to wear these things. But you have a choice. You
can go online and find actual good designs of the past from Adidas, or wear
other t-shirts or Milan merchandise that will not make you the laughing stock
of wherever you are at. The team are already playing better than these
abominable kits, so I don’t worry as much about them. Just sad that we still have
a contract with Puma and will be subject to their poor design and fit for
however much longer that lasts.
This post inspired by the music of
Oingo Boingo’s “Grey Matter”
Our next match is
a friendly
FC Feronikeli vs.
AC Milan
Saturday, August
10 • 20:45pm CEST (2:45pm EDT)
This is Milan’s
first match ever to be played in Kosovo