Staff at the National Football Museum will wear a new football-shirt style kit from this week – made from bamboo.
The limited-edition National Football Museum football shirts have been supplied and manufactured by PlayerLayer, famous for their work with eco-friendly football club Forest Green Rovers.
The new shirt uses a 50% sustainable bamboo mix – also used in Forest Green Rovers’ 2019-20 shirts.
It has been designed by Manchester artist and illustrator Stanley Chow with the brief to ‘create something striking that represents the museum and football today’.
It features a lightning bolt on the front, representing the energy of the football fans. Half of the front-facing design is a bold pink colour – representing the museum’s commitment to diversity. The other half is white with the cross of St George on the reverse, reinforcing the message that the museum is England’s only national museum for football.
Chow has also designed a unique crest for the shirt, incorporating a representation of the iconic city centre Urbis building – where the museum is based – along with the initials NFM.
Each shirt has the number 12 on the back, representing the fan as the legendary ‘twelfth man or woman’ – a homage to the power of the fans in turning the tide of a match with their songs and encouragement for their team.
Tim Desmond, Chief Executive of the National Football Museum said, “We are thrilled with the design of the new shirt – it sums up our values perfectly. We think its striking and unique and the staff love it. Stanley Chow has drawn inspiration from England’s kit, Inter Milan and the Nike Arsenal kit of the mid-1990s to come up with something that encapsulates what the National Football Museum is about.”
“We’re delighted that PlayerLayer have manufactured and supplied the shirts especially for us using their fabric made from a 50% sustainable bamboo mix, making it much more environmentally friendly than many shirts.”
The shirt has been commissioned to coincide with the opening of the NFM’s new exhibition, called ‘Strip! How Football Got Shirty’.
The exclusive new exhibition unpicks the global fascination with football shirts and how they have influenced football culture, design, fashion and technology.
With well over 200 shirts on display, STRIP! is the largest curated exhibition of football shirts ever assembled in this country.
It examines how football shirts have developed from mere kit to genuine objects of desire, looking at the design of the football shirt, from the functional to the aesthetic, influential designers and manufacturers and the rise of the football hipster, as well as detailing iconic shirts and shirt disasters.
