👕 Chelsea Kits Thread

[manpe 10,861]

Yeah agree, on big picture it looks quite nice. But I'm still not so sure I usually make up my mind when I see them running on the pitch with them.

[middleoftheshed 388]

With his black helmet and this top he will look like a stabilo highlighter.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

The home kit is growing on me. Maybe if we won the CL in it, I'd like it even more

[DavidEU 2,023]

We wouldn't play the final in this BL. You can only wear one set of shirts per season in the CL, but the PL allows you to wear the new kits for the final day.

Different competitions vary, for example, the French League has the same rules as the CL, and they arent allowed to wear a new kit early.

[SuperSheva7 0]

The new home kit has grown on me, I like it! The GK's... I'm not so sure but I think Cech can pull off any color

[Fulham Broadway 17,299]

Not into replica shirts -but might order one with 'Riise' on the back.

[James 5,286]

Review of the shirt from vitalfootball

Today Chelsea unveiled their new home kit. More to the point, they unveiled it, specifying that it was available for order, pending official 'launch day` May 8th.

The dates are chosen deliberately: the last home game of the season (May 10th, against Bolton) will probably see Chelsea playing in the new kit. Then a special edition of the new kit will be used for our appearance in Moscow later on this year. Before any Liverpool fan suggests that we`re 'lacking in respect` pending the home leg of the Champions League semi-final, let us point out that Chelsea have signed up for a summer tournament in honour of Lokomotiv Moscow…

The launch of a new kit is always an important moment. Millions of fans will be forking out the £40 pounds for the shirt (£45 if you`d prefer the long-sleeved variation), possibly with another £12 for personalisation. It`s a key tool in a club`s branding strategy: they will hope to flog the shirt all around the world. You know that you`re a big club when reasonable copies are being sold for a fraction of that price in Saigon and / or eBay.

So what can we say about this new kit? This is the 3rd year since Adidas became Chelsea`s kit supplier. It is our 5th Adidas offering, including the highlighter yellow unveiled last year, which certainly caused heads to turn (and retinas to burn). We also had a short-lived dark anthracite kit which was replaced by the yellow.

The new first-team kit is the replacement of Adidas first offering, which was a monument in Chelsea kits. Obviously this is the opinion of this humble writer, but as I am an authority on fashion and a guru on style, my opinion on these matters counts much more than anyone else`s.

In the photo accompanying the launch announcement, the new kit is modelled by 3 Chelsea players, looking necessarily moody. Ashley Cole to the right, Michael Ballack in the centre, and Shaun Wright Philips to the left. Hang on, what`s that about? How about some of the emblematic Chelsea players, John Terry or Frank Lampard? Joe Cole, even? Is this an indication that those players no longer have a role at the club? And why Shaun Wright Philips? Surely if one player will leave the club, it is Shaun, so why use him to model the new kit, unless to give a clear signal that the new clobber is available in smaller sizes?

The new kit is not very much of a surprise, since it was leaked a few months ago (funnily enough modelled by Frank Lampard). A first complaint concerns the shade of blue in the ad. Far from the vivid azure of recent models, this one has a lot less electricity in it. It resembles the bleu delavé of the 1997 Autoglass wash (a kit berated in a recent Chelsea magazine as being one of the worst of all time, which is harsh). Luckily the hue in the advert is not the same as that on the megastore website(if you want to order the shirt), which indicates that the blue in question is quite a robust and full-bodied blue, with a slight aftertaste of an organic turquoise.

The main problem with this shirt is that it comes after the first Adidas home kit, which was boss. It was a high-tech model not so much in the materials as in the design and lines, the balance between the elements. Adidas had made a number which looked not so much like a football shirt as a piece of armour from one of those unbelievably complex PS3 war games set 200 years into the future. Just the collar was innovative: a thick white band round around the neck, looking like a priest`s dog collar, and the rest was raised but only slightly, obviously with no lapels though. And the whole thing has been designed with a metallic colour scheme which will look at its best on an LCD monitor.

And now, Adidas have had to propose a new design which is sufficiently different to justify bringing out a new kit and for kids to pester their parents to buy it. I won`t be one of them.

The lines simply don`t work as well. Take the collar (please, just take it away): it`s a late 1980`s throwback, a v-neck polo with the lapels straight off those Lacoste numbers that a lot of people wore 20 years ago in all sorts of pastel shades. Those lapels are white. I have visions of a moody French frontman (let`s say Nicolas Anelka) deciding that it would be a good idea to play with the collar turned up. Trust me, that is not a good thing.

Another innovation is the return of yellow, albeit in discrete piping around the edges of the sleeves and the collar. It`s a nice touch, sartorially, but does it work in a Chelsea context? Again, that 1997 shirt tried to integrate yellow, and one wonders whether 3 colours are too much.

And the rest of the shirt is, well, lacking something. Gone is the white line around the collarbone in the 2006-2008 kit. All the other mandatory elements are there: the Chelsea badge, the Adidas logo also, the habitual 3 stripes down the sleeves up to the collar. But something else has gone: apparently we are now sponsored by 'Samsung` and no longer 'Samsung mobile`. This further unclutters the shirt, and I`m not sure that this just leaves too much blank. Then again, it also highlights that we have a cool sponsor. SO much more satisfying than, say, an insurance company. Or a betting firm. Or a middle-eastern airline.

On the whole, a tad disappointing. It`s just too organic in its overall feel. Even the blue is less metallic, even if it is quite a strong tone. These things obviously move in cycles, but this represents an unwanted throwback to a bygone era; the image is somewhat less high-tech than the previous shirt.

For those that are interested, the new colour of the goalkeeping first kit is a deep orange verging on the terracotta. Oh, and interestingly, the club has continued with its policy of launching ladies versions of the kit, nicely tapered to fit their figures.

I, for one, won`t be rushing to buy this new kit. But hey, the new kit launch means that the 2006-2008 model is being sold at knockdown prices.

Souce: VitalFootball

[middleoftheshed 388]

Detail.

[manpe 10,861]

I love the GK kit Chelsea logo

[James 5,286]

Not a fan of the collar, wish the home shirt was just like the keepers around the neck with a lion on the back.

[warnie_666 1,081]

http://www.chelseamegastore.com/product_im...m_cfc-43474.jpg

I had to wear my Gogs for this...WTF is wrong with us...? Why are we coming with such bright colors?

[BlueLion. 21,491]

Same, its a really nice feature on the keeper shirt. If only that kit was green, or maybe a more respectable shade of orange/brown.