If the women's team jersey is better than the men's one

After presenting the Home jersey a few weeks ago, Olympique Lyon also unveiled the Away kit for 2023/24, among the most interesting things seen so far in the busy release season. Among the main features of the new kit is the choice to recover the crest used by the French club from 1989 to 1996, a very interesting detail that also seems perfect and consistent with the recent choices of adidas, sponsor of the French.

The passion for jerseys and the trend of wearing them more and more off the pitch has made the public very attentive to the choice of jerseys in their entirety and stylistic coherence. Every detail makes a difference and so do the jersey sponsors, which continue to be the strongest graphic element within the kits. In this sense, the example of Lyon is significant in how the choice of a sponsor can change the aesthetic value of a jersey. If in fact, Fly Emirates has been present on the men's jerseys for years, the Women's kit this season too will have the two red and yellow circles symbolizing Mastercard, which due to the chromatic precision with which they recall the red details, and the orange one of the star placed in the center of the chest, the women's jersey seems to be studied and designed precisely in relation to the sponsor. 

For fans of football jerseys and beyond, this relationship between jersey and sponsor is great news and positively clashes with that feeling one gets when a beautiful kit is ruined by an ugly sponsor, when ugly is to be understood as graphically uninteresting, or one that is unrelated in style to the jersey. It is therefore no coincidence that some clubs are currently selling their shirts without a commercial sponsor on the chest. Often, graphic designers venture out to experiment with what the current uniforms would look like with other jersey sponsors, giving vent to mockups and concept kits. In this case, we seem to have managed to get a real example of the best possible version of the new kit, so much so that we try to ask the question "Would you buy a Women's jersey just because the sponsor makes it look better?"

Men's and women's clubs, however, often have the same sponsor, Italy for example only Milan women (Inter in the past league with Mastercard) have a shirt 'different' from the men's one, without it changing too much in terms of shirt style, while in Europe among the top clubs are Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid or Levante. Lyon's new jersey is the fulfilled wish to be able to choose the best sponsor based on the colors and style of the jersey, previously only achieved through the work of a few graphic designers. All the more reason to watch the Lyon women's matches next season and hope for more similar choices for the next release.