Should we believe the adidas hype? - 2023 Women's World Cup kits
I'm experiencing a major bout of déjà vu. With a World Cup on the horizon (the 2023 Women's World Cup), adidas are the talk of the town with a set of kits that has set social media ablaze.
The new collection is a vibrant set of designs with some colour palettes we've rarely seen before. Just as eye-catching was the photography that accompanied the release.
Do the new shirts actually justify the hype, though? I'd argue yes, mostly.
adidas came out swinging with these ones. The new designs follow the theme of nature, with handpicked styles inspired by the landscapes of the respective countries the kits are representing. So true are the designs to this theme that some of the shirts stray far away from the traditional colourways of a team. It's on this note that I'll bring my main critique, which is more of a preference thing than anything else.
I like my home and away international kits to be identifiable for a country. That's not to say I wouldn't like to see experimentation from time to time, but these shirts feel very much like third kits. The top down designs, which fit into a theme regardless of the team in question, is a lot of fun from a creative perspective, but the old-school in me would like to preserve the identities of a national team at the same time. I'm being picky though, and if we consider the shirts on the basis of the designs alone there is so much to enjoy.
A landscape theme makes a tonne of sense given that the World Cup is taking place in Australia and New Zealand, two countries renowned for their natural beauty. As we look across the various shirts it's as if we are travelling around the world, discovering incredible places which look other-worldly.
Perhaps the most striking is Colombia's away kit. The mesmerising pattern draws on the Caño Cristales river, commonly dubbed the "River of Five Colours" or the "Liquid Rainbow". It looks like a concept kit, the kind of which you could never dream of seeing on a real shirt, but it's very real and very beautiful.
Other personal favourites include the Japan away, which possesses a soft pink and purple colour scheme designed to look like a sunrise over Mount Fuji. What I particularly like about this one is that the colours themselves are the main story. There is a vague shape which looks like a series of clouds, but this isn't just a busy shirt for the sake of being "disruptive". The colours are enough of a story.
Other shirts like Germany's away take us to the Black Forest, whilst Spain's kit has us underwater in coral reefs. It's all a visual treat with, crucially, each design being bespoke.
I've saved the best news 'till last. Most of the patterns continue on the back of the shirts! Sadly some of the shirts still have plain backs, but there are more hits than misses in regards to continuing patterns. International kits are notoriously stingy in this area, as are adidas themselves, but this is a decided step in the right direction.
There is a lot of hype in the modern kit game, but I'm buying in here. Even with some of my reservations, I can't resist the explosion of colour and creativity that's on display with these kits. It's the kind of thing we used to cry out for from the big names. Put simply, we're eating good at the moment.
