N Brown’s menswear e-tail brand Jacamo has reported a surge in searches for retro football shirts. In fact it said with England qualifying for the Euros quarter finals and due to play Switzerland on Saturday, searches for ‘Retro England Football Shirts’ have increased by 810% and for ‘England shirt’ have risen by 492%. 

The retro element that consumers are searching for is particularly interesting and sports brands and football clubs are clearly responding to this interest.

This week Adidas and one of the world’s biggest football clubs, Manchester United, announced their new Home kit for 2024/25. And while it’s loaded with new colour and performance tech, the vintage element is key.

Adidas said “the design takes inspiration from reflective jerseys the Busby Babes experimented [with from] 1952-57, which appeared as a different shade of red depending on the viewing angle under the stadium lights”.

Despite being modernised with “a gradient of light to dark reds [that] runs down the shirt from top to bottom, transitioning seamlessly between shades”, the vintage link is increasingly key when it comes to getting consumers to part with their cash for what can be pretty expensive items.

The look takes other design cues from classic shirts worn by the Busby Babes, that were designed with fluorescent materials to help the players see each other better under the floodlights. 

Sam Handy, SVP of Product and Design at Adidas, said: “The colour red is consistently fundamental to the club’s DNA. There have been many different expressions of it over the years and, for 24/25, we wanted to do something a bit different. We’ve drawn inspiration from shirts that Manchester United experimented with as floodlights were introduced to stadiums. These were fantastic early examples of creative design in matchwear and were worn by some of the club’s most legendary players. The colour-shifting appearance of these was a big influence in this season’s modern expression of the Home kit, designed to capture attention from all angles on pitch.”

Meanwhile, another key club, West Ham United, has launched its new Home kit and said it’s “a tribute to a period when the Hammers carved their name into football’s rich history.  

“The 1960s were a transformative decade of domestic and European triumphs, led by icons like Bobby Moore, Martin Peters, and Geoff Hurst. These legends not only brought unprecedented success to the club.”

Commemorating the 60th anniversary of West Ham’s 1965 European Cup Winners’ Cup win, the kit pays tribute to this with its classic claret body and blue sleeves. It’s “a modern take on 1960s style” and also sports Umbro’s Centenary Double Diamond logo, celebrating Umbro’s100th anniversary.

The launch film stars supporters and personalities such as actors Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, Tony Way, and Harry Collett, alongside 1965 Cup Winners’ Cup hero Brian Dear and Roberta Moore, daughter of Bobby Moore. Current stars like Jarrod Bowen and rising talent George Earthy also feature.

A specially commissioned song by The Rifles was created for the launch soundtrack, recorded at Abbey Road Studios (a location also inextricably linked to the 1960s). This track will be released alongside the Home kit.