Although fashion hasn’t always been innately linked with football, over the past few decades, especially from the 1990s onwards, there has been a noticeable insurgence of football-related fashion being worn on the high street. However, the ownership of your favorite team’s kit was once treated as a pure luxury.
Community Spirit for The Game
For most working-class families of the 1960s and 1970s, conditions within the home were relatively austere – most households, pre-1970s didn’t own a TV, or if they were lucky enough to have obtained such a marvel of technology, it would generally be a black and white set. This general lack of TV sets nationwide, added to the social aspect of the football viewing experience.
Football has been at the social heart of the nation for many years, and in previous decades, much as it is now, whole families would align themselves with their favorite local or national team. If a football-loving family didn’t own their own TV set, it was entirely common for neighbours and extended family to congregate in the household lucky enough to own one. This created a thrilling and exciting communal atmosphere on match day – food and drink would be shared, along with the customary hoots and chants of support for the team. These warm and crowded tiny living rooms, sporting photographs of loved ones, well-worn fabric upholstery sofas and the obligatory family dog, would be transformed into miniature stadium stands, bursting with the same vibrancy and passion of their beloved team’s home ground.
Although it was real treat to view the upcoming match from the comfort of home, the viewing experience was impaired somewhat due having to watch the match in black and white – it could be a struggle to keep score when each opposing team were wearing similar toned kits; dark red and blue would appear to be almost identical when viewed upon the monochromatic screen of a black and white TV.
However, this never disheartened or discouraged the avid football-loving family, as the splendour and spectacle of the game itself, along with the party atmosphere, was more entertainment than most would’ve expected previously, before the advent of the home TV.
Hand-knitted Football Fashion
In current years, obtaining a replica kit to show your support for your favorite team is incredibly easy, and often relatively cheap in compassion to past years. In fact, if we again look back to previous decades such as the 1960s, owning a replica shirt wasn’t actually an option, due to not only financial reasons, but due to the concept of a replica shirt still being in its infancy. Instead, Grannies nationwide would sit fervently knitting at a rate of knots, to ensure their grandchildren would have but a simple scarf or appropriately coloured bobble-hat of support for match day. Teenagers would proudly don their plain red jumpers for a Manchester United game, or there would be stories shared of enthusiastic Newcastle United fans stealing their father’s shoe polish to cobble together a make-shift black and white shirt of support for their favorite team.
The Rise of the Replica Shirt
However, we now take the option to own a replica shirt for granted – in the 1980s and the 1990s the replica shirt took on a new direction in terms of fashion, when it became ingratiated into the everyday wardrobe. No longer were football shirts reserved for match day, as part of a uniform of support; they became an acceptable form of attire for almost any casual event or occasion. It was around this time that sportswear in general moved from the shelves of specialist fitness stores to the high street. Trainers and tracksuit bottoms could be worn by the fit and not so fit alike; whether at the pub, doing the weekly shop or simply relaxing at home – it was no longer unusual to see people wearing sportswear on daily basis.
Women’s Football Fashion – The “Ladette”
During this period of sportswear’s transition into fashion, it also became mainstream for women to wear football shirts, with the “ladette” phenomenon of the 1990s being a great example of this. Pubs and stadiums were filled with women equally enamoured with what used to be a game primarily the reserve of men; putting aside dainty glasses of liqueur and wine for sturdy pints of beer and slipping into over-sized football shirts to come show their support on match day. It didn’t take long for kit retailers to realize that replica shirts designed specifically to fit a female frame were no longer a niche, but a solid target market, and thus introduced shorter-length, fitted ladies shirts.
The replica shirt and general football fashion market has developed massively over the past two decades, becoming one of the most lucrative businesses worldwide. With everything from football themed baby grows to nightwear and footwear, it’s clear that football is far from relinquishing it’s relatively fresh grasp on high street fashion.