“Arsenal are a fashion brand with a football club” was a common taunt aimed at the North London side as the “nearlys” piled up and the trophy cabinet remained empty. The team seemed to always have a new merch drop at the ready after disappointing results on the pitch. It became a running joke among supporters, almost as a coping mechanism.
At least we looked good. The stuff produced by the club, adidas, and various collaborators from around the fashion world has been and still is excellent. We didn’t
realize it at the time—understandably so, we were focused on the team falling agonizingly short on the pitch—but Arsenal were trendsetters. The club were and are on the leading edge of the ever-growing overlap between sport and fashion.
It’s an easy fit. London is one of the biggest fashion cities in the world. Arsenal are the biggest club in London. Surely some of the credit for the Arsenal-fashion thing should go to Hector Bellerin. Even though he left the club before the collaborations really took off, he was outspoken about his love for clothing and high fashion and has gone on to design his own clothing lines.
The connection between football and fashion starts with kits. The shirt is the item most closely associated with a club and the badge is the label. The parallels with fashion are obvious and unavoidable. Brand identity reigns supreme. Burberry has the iconic tartan check. Arsenal have the famous red and white. You really can’t go wrong with a classic.
I’ll be the first to admit the Arsenal red and white, while gorgeous, isn’t exactly high fashion. It’s a bit plain. Fortunately, the Gunners have no shortage of patterns, colorways, and history to draw upon for inspiration. And so we come to the Bruised Banana.
The striking yellow and black combined with the bold zig-zag pattern is a designer’s dream. It stands out. It’s memorable. No wonder the throwback kit is a common sight wherever Arsenal supporters have gathered.
At the same time, it is a retro look asking for reinterpretation. That’s exactly what the club did in 2019 in the first set of kits with adidas. They brought back the bruised banana with a modern twist – swapping the static, horizontal jagged pattern for a more dynamic, angled approach while also fading the black lines themselves to be less harsh. Even if you preferred the bolder look of the old yellow and black kits, the new version was a vast improvement on the simple designs of the weirdly tight-fitting Puma kits from the previous partnership. Toothpaste green, anyone?
Throwbacks work best when they, one, look good, and two, connect with something. Arsenal have a rich club history that is important to supporters. Those bruised banana kits bring back fond memories of Arsenal in the early 90’s, and early 90’s Arsenal means Ian Wright.
Wrighty is the club’s most recognizable goodwill ambassador. It should come as no surprise that they used him to help debut those kits (and have used him at pretty much every opportunity since). He’s part of the fabric of the club and he has a palpable, deep appreciation for the club’s history and what Arsenal means to the supporters. He’s everything Arsenal rolled into one, really. He loves the club’s history and is part of it himself. A former player and now a massive supporter. Ian Wright is authentic Arsenal.
Authenticity is a vital part of connecting with the supporters, in this case, through fashion. The fans, the people with Arsenal blood in their veins, know when something isn’t real, when it’s just a marketing ploy. They’ll be the first to tell you when you’ve gotten it wrong, but they’ll eagerly embrace the things you get right. And Arsenal have gotten a lot right with their blending of club and fashion.
They’ve got plenty to draw on, after all. In addition to the aforementioned club history, Arsenal have North London. Just look at the recent Premier League title celebrations in the streets of the N5—people of all ages, races, creeds, backgrounds, economic classes partying together. They’ve got a rich tapestry of cultures and experiences to draw from, which is precisely what they’ve done.
Arsenal and adidas did the Jamaican-inspired pre-match kits, released just before Notting Hill carnival weekend, adding green to the bruised-banana-esque black and yellow angles to evoke the Jamaican flag. London has a large Jamaican population, many of whom are Arsenal supporters. Wright (born in Woolwitch, like Arsenal) has Jamaican parents. The connection is real and that’s why it works.
Led by Arsene Wenger, the club were at the forefront of recruiting African players to the Premier League, which built a deep connection with the continent and created millions of supporters both there and in the African diaspora (in London and worldwide). The Arsenal x Labrum collaboration, which included the ‘24-’25 third kit, was an (overdue) nod to that connection. The stunning black kit was designed by Labrum founder and Arsenal supporter Foday Dumbuya, himself an African immigrant, to evoke the Pan-African flag and includes a zig-zag pattern to represent the emigration from the continent and to pay homage to African art.
Wright (there’s that guy again) walked in Labrum’s fashion week runway show the year before the kit release. The brand designed clothes for Bukayo Saka, born in London to Nigerian parents, and Reiss Nelson, who like Wright was born in London with Jamaican heritage. Labrum hosted a runway show at the Emirates in 2024 with players among the models.
It’s North London. It’s Arsenal. It’s real. That’s why it works.
It’s also cool. There is no other way to put it. The adidas x Arsenal kit release videos are one part hype track, another part music video, weaving together color, sound, style, club history, with the next year’s jersey.
Cool is an important part of urban fashion and Arsenal have embraced the urbanicity of North London, collaborating with streetwear brands for custom ranges that have been wildly popular. The collaboration with Aries sold out the bomber jackets almost immediately on release. In 2023, the adidas x Arsenal x Maharishi line combined the brand’s camouflage strengths with the Lunar Year of the Dragon to reimagine Gunnersaurus as a dragon for unique lifestyle pieces.
True to club ethos, Arsenal have included the women’s team in pushing the connection between football and fashion. The collaboration with Stella McCartney was the first of its kind and produced a beautiful, 10-piece collection. Remember what I said earlier about the Arsenal red being plain? Well, Stella McCartney combining it with her signature leopard prints would beg to differ.
Arsenal haven’t slowed down on the fashion front. Declan Rice posed for a spread in the May edition of Vogue, wearing, among other things, a Burberry suit. Bukayo Saka is a regular posing for high fashion adverts. The club are in the process of releasing the 2026-27 range of kits – a fashion event in and of itself. The red debuted in mid-May. The release video? Players on the phone with supporters, talking about the club, home, and the Arsenal connection.
