Football as New Luxury: Review of 2024/25

Now that the dust has settled on EURO 2024, we look at the good, bad, and better of football as New Luxury as we head into the 2024/25 season.

Football’s wild summer has come to a close. EURO 2024 and Copa America are behind us, with Spain and Argentina reigned champions of the respective tournaments. Finally, a chance to breathe… were it so easy.

We’re only weeks away from the first kick-off of the Premier League 2024/25 season. While teams are busy with pre-season friendlies, international tours, and non-stop training, football’s New Luxury trailblaze continues to bear fruit.

As is standard for the sport, there are many moving parts; transfers, collaborations, kit launches, etc. Keeping up with every aspect of football, let alone its fashion crossover, is a tough mountain to conquer. On and off the pitch, the 2024/25, ahead of its official kick-off, is proving to be an exciting prospect, showing football’s New Luxury rise is yet to lose momentum.

In a bid to keep up with everything worthy of attention heading into the new season, we fix eyes on the good, bad, and better, of the upcoming season (so far).

Michael B. Jordan’s Bournemouth makeover

Collaborations are an essential part of football’s growing crossover with fashion.

As football teams with a global imprint, like Barcelona F.C, Arsenal, Manchester United, and AC Milan embrace fashion from streetwear to luxury, thinking outside of the box has become of equal importance as utilising tried and tested designs to appease fans.

With football’s growing influence in fashion (and vice versa) comes a greater presence of celebrity influence within the game. Whether this comes through ownership, such as Drake and LeBron James’ hands in teams like Liverpool F.C. through investment groups or game attendance by Kim Kardashian, there’s no avoiding the power of celebrity in the beautiful game.

For Bournemouth, or “the Cherries,” fashion and celebrity have come to a head as they launch a collaborative special-edition kit with part owner Michael B. Jordan.

The kit, which will appear during pre-season friendlies, sets a new standard for the team, offering an apt demonstration of collaborations done right.

Venezia F.C. goes D.I.Y

Earlier this year, we posed the question: are teams about to start manufacturing their own kits?

A conversation sparked by rumours that Barcelona F.C. would be ditching Nike to go in-house – huge news at the time – we assessed the pros and cons of teams opting to let go of their manufacturing contracts with big names like Nike and adidas.

As the kit wars continue to rage, with adidas snatching contracts from the Swoosh and vice versa, Venezia F.C, which has had some of the sport’s best kits in recent years, has gone DIY, serving up kits free of third-party branding.

Whether or not Venezia F.C. will keep up its DIY kits during the upcoming season is yet to be seen, but its efforts during the pre-season have shown that it doesn’t rely on Kappa to strike gold.

Could this be the start of an in-house revolution?

Arsenal’s 2024/25 away kit: hit or miss?

When adidas and Arsenal reunited during the 2019/20 season after 25 years apart, fans of the historic North London club would be treated to a slew of memorable kits in proceeding seasons.

The 2022/23 season, in particular, saw the duo strike gold, delivering an unforgettable trio of kits. Having set their standards incredibly high, and winning the favour of Gunners across the globe, Three Stripes faced a difficult task: maintaining upward momentum.

While the 2023/24 season kept fans satisfied, the new 2024/25 kit has divided fans, with many commenting that the kit – designed in collaboration with British African brand Labrum – looks like Lynx Africa.

A less than ideal comparison. Perhaps once the season starts, it’ll unite fans.

Umbro hits gold with nostalgia

This year, Umbro is celebrating 100 years of heritage. Its celebrations have seen the British brand make monumental waves across the New Luxury market, with a series of fashion collaborations, and throwback-inspired kits collections that have sent fans across the globe into a frenzy.

Its successes have demonstrated the power of nostalgia and heritage in New Luxury success, utilising its history and design archive to level itself as a contemporary contender in a fast-evolving, and heavily saturated market.

No one has done nostalgia quite as well as Umbro, and its new AFC Wimbledon gear proves as much. Bringing back ‘90s drill tops? Perfection.

Kappa’s European trailblaze continues

In mainland European football, few football kit manufacturers have proven their aesthetic finesse quite like Kappa.

Thanks to its work with Venezia F.C. and FC Athens in recent years, Kappa has become near-synonymous with fashion in football — not through big-name collaborations with fashion labels, but by delivering kits that seamlessly blend on-pitch and lifestyle looks.

A difficult formula to perfect, Kappa continues to prove its merits with a series of European showstoppers ahead of the 2024/25 season, with its FC Versailles home and away stripes particularly strong.

adidas’ marketing is GOATED

adidas is having an incredible year.

Although it lost its long-standing contract with the German national team to Nike in what would cause quite a stir in German politics, Three Stripes has achieved win-after-win with its marketing.

Thanks to its electric roster of athlete talent, which includes the legendary Zinedine Zidane, Messi, and star boy Jude Bellingham, adidas has been on the front foot.

Tapping into its archive and its golden era of marketing during the early 2000s, it successfully relaunched the Predator boot series and aligned itself with the sport’s biggest moments, including EURO 2024’s goal of the tournament, Jude Bellingham’s sensational overhead kick against Slovakia, and Argentina’s Copa America win.

By combining nostalgia and reactive marketing during major tournaments, it’s lept miles ahead of the competition.

adidas’ boots dominate the world stage

As above, adidas’ footballing successes in 2024 have been massively influenced by the relaunch of its early 2000s predator boot series.

By ensuring rising talents make major tournament debuts wearing its boots, and dressing the scorers of heart-stopping goals in the same pairs, the iconic Three Stripes have been at the heart of historic, iconic, and jaw-dropping moments throughout the year.

Castore falls off

Switching kit manufacturers can have significant consequences for a football team. When a manufacturer proves itself, delivering world-class kits season-on-season, it wins the loyalty of the fans, which is the key to ensuring their contracts are long-lasting.

The battle to secure contracts is big business, as we’ve seen play out several times between Nike and adidas. For Everton, the switch to Castore to kickstart the new season has already spelled disaster.

Last week, the team debuted their new kits with Castore during a pre-season match. 30 minutes into the game, the team’s badge was falling off of kits, highlighting a serious lapse in quality that has riled up fans — understandable, considering the price of kits.

Let this be a reminder for football teams across the board: quality is a non-negotiable for success in New Luxury.