It’s Nike SZN!
Nike have been busy unveiling all sorts of things this week, from the jerseys and footwear Olympic athletes will wear to collabs with notorious streetwear brands. The sportswear giant also unveiled the 2020 football kits for four national teams, namely Nigeria, South Korea, and the USA and I have to say, they really outdid themselves.
Nike has opted for some pretty loud designs this time around, channeling an old school aesthetic with a modern design effortlessly. The four kits look more like collaboration jerseys with artists than actual football jerseys designed by Nike themselves. Each kit celebrates it’s nations unique history and culture and comprises of a variety of necklines, sleeves and badge placements.
While all four look amazing, Nigeria’s jersey really stands out. Nike made headlines two years ago with the Nigerian national jersey for the 2018 World Cup. The design was loud, featuring wild patterns of contrasting green, black and white that somehow just worked. The kit was a huge success with hypebeasts everywhere and ended up selling 3 million units worldwide.
This time around, they’ve somehow made the kit look even better, fusing the traditional aesthetic of an agbada robe with a modern design. One of the more obvious things that Nike did differently with this kit is the placement of the team badge and Nike logo, opting instead to place it in the centre instead of on the left and right. Even the away kit looks great, with Nike opting for a more subtle design with accents of hand drawn patterns on the collar and sleeves.
Another kit that stands out is South Korea’s. While the Asian giants home kit is nice with its wavy patterns that actually comprise of the trigrams from it’s national flag, the away kit looks like a work of art. The white jersey is covered in tiger stripes that look like it’s been painted on with water colour, which adds to the overall aesthetic of the kit. The tiger is actually closely associated with Korean culture and is actually on the South Korean football crest.
