The timeless charm of the Anniversary Kit

The Anniversary Kit is a moment that creates excitement among football fans. Brands and clubs take advantage of these opportunities to celebrate a moment in a club's history, an anniversary, to honor a historic event, or even to spotlight a brand campaign. These are ideal occasions to break with tradition, using unfamiliar colors and often forgotten on club and federation jerseys, introducing alternative emblems and logos or even completely revamping team uniforms. In some cases, we have even seen sponsors agree to forgo visibility to allow the story to be told in its purest form, a sure way to gain the praise of purists. Unlike third and fourth kits, which experiment with the unknown, Anniversaries are a way to keep the memory of stories more than a hundred years old alive.

In 2005, Arsenal celebrated their last season at their Highbury home by switching from their famous red kit to burgundy, the club's founding color, as their main look for the entire year. Inter Milan used their centenary jersey as an away kit for three seasons in honor of their 100 years, with a red cross on a white background, and it is still one of the most beloved by Inter fans today. But the jerseys that take it to the next level and reach unicorn status are the ones worn for one or two games and then disappear, celebrating a moment where the objective is not necessarily to sell a large number of units since they are often barely available. These pieces tend to be worn in friendlies or on special occasions to honor an event in the club's history. In 2008, Manchester United wore an all-red uniform with no details except for white on the collar to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the tragic plane crash in Munich in which many players lost their lives, during a derby against Manchester City. In the last 20 years, we have seen some really interesting designs worn for only one game.

France and Brazil played a friendly in 2004 for FIFA's centenary with jerseys that reproduced those worn 100 years earlier: France wore buttoned shirts and, most interestingly, shorts with a belt, while Brazil wore white jerseys with a buttoned collar for the first time since their traumatic defeat in the 1950 World Cup final. It is an extreme example, a design so impractical that it would never have been considered in the era of "super light, zero distraction" uniforms required by today's top athletes, but football is a romantic sport where nostalgia plays a fundamental role, and seeing modern players wearing the kits that fans had only seen in black and white photos of the past is a beautiful image. A perfect execution of a special kit for a unique game where the stakes weren't so high, in fact it was this that made the game memorable, with everyone remembering the jerseys and no one the result.We have also seen cases where teams have worn colors that had no affiliation with the club's history, creating a sense of novelty and shock among fans. An example was Barcelona's 2009 Joan Gamper Trophy jerseys, highly sought after not only for their association with a memorable match or season, but also for the unusual combination of blue, orange, and aqua green. A mix of the club's most iconic colors, united to celebrate the club's founder Joan Gamper. An unattainable jersey also because it was produced in only 1899 units, like the club's founding year, adding an extra note of romanticism. Then there's the moment of the brand, in 2005 the Netherlands took the pitch in a match against England wearing a half-white, half-black jersey as part of Nike's Stand Up Speak Up anti-racism campaign.

Both of these examples use a unique game to make a different statement through the kits. These unique kits have become a tradition and in the digital age they are a great way for clubs and federations to ensure they are part of the current conversation. These briefs are a fun challenge for brands, clubs, and designers. They offer institutions the opportunity to break with tradition or to reference a specific moment, all with a level of creative freedom that is not always there. These unique kits offer a moment that can be seized to go further and create something completely new to make a statement or to take the opposite approach and delve deep into the archives and tell unique stories, juxtaposing history with today.