Written by Abdoulie Lemon
Restaurants, drink brands, musicians and streetwear labels all want a piece of football’s aesthetic. But when everyone wants to wear the shirt, does it lose some of what made it special?
Everyone seems to want a football shirt these days. And not just football clubs. Take Toby Carvery, the British roast-dinner chain, which released a vintage-style football shirt complete with pinstripes, an embroidered crest and an Est. 1985 detail. It's funny that a restaurant known for its Sunday roasts decided it needed a football shirt, but the design is surprisingly good. It understands what makes a retro kit appealing.
Then there is Greggs, whose collaboration with Fenwick brought the bakery’s branding into a retro football-inspired collection. Irn-Bru has had a go, too, turning its branding into a football-style top. Musicians and streetwear labels have also jumped on the trend, finding ways to bring football shirts into their merchandise and collections. On their own, these releases can be fun. The Toby Carvery shirt is a good example of how humour can work in a design. Others are less convincing, but that is part of the appeal. Not every football shirt-inspired release needs to be taken seriously. Still, when restaurants, drinks companies, and fashion brands all reach for the same idea, you start to wonder how long it can stay interesting. When did the football shirt become something every brand felt it needed?
When Football Becomes Just an Aesthetic
Football shirts have been part of everyday fashion for years. People wear them to the pub, on nights out, and in their everyday outfits. Blokecore has taken that relationship further, turning the football shirt, particularly the older, more colourful ones, into a trend in its own right. Brands noticed it was only a matter of time. The appeal is easy to understand. Football shirts already have plenty going for them: bold colours, unusual patterns, oversized sponsors and designs that stand out in a way most everyday clothing doesn’t. Add a familiar brand name and a bit of retro detailing, and you have something that feels different from another logo T-shirt.
The Toby Carvery shirt works because there is a joke behind it. You don’t expect a Sunday roast chain to release a football shirt, which is exactly why people notice it. Greggs and Irn-Bru are doing something similar, taking something familiar and giving it a football-inspired makeover. There is nothing wrong with that. Fashion has always borrowed from sport, and some of the best designs come from unexpected places. But there is a difference between a brand doing something interesting with football and simply using the look because it happens to be popular.
A retro collar, an embroidered crest and a few pinstripes can go a long way. But once you’ve seen the same details appear on shirts for a bakery, a restaurant and a drinks company, the novelty starts to wear off. That's where the conversation gets interesting. A football shirt can look the part without having much to do with football itself. It might borrow the colours, the shape, and the details, but that doesn’t automatically give it the history or meaning of the real thing.
Of course, not every shirt needs a connection to a club or a memorable season. Sometimes a good design is just a good design. The question is whether brands are doing something creative with football or simply borrowing its appearance because they know people will buy into it. Football’s influence on fashion is nothing new, and it has no reason to stop. But when everyone starts working from the same template, it becomes harder to tell who's being original and who is just following the crowd.
Everyone Wants a Kit Now
The Toby Carvery shirt sits somewhere between parody and a genuine attempt to make something people would want to wear. That is part of what makes it work. The design is familiar enough to read as a football shirt, while the branding makes it slightly ridiculous. You can appreciate the joke without taking the product too seriously. Greggs and Fenwick approached the idea differently, bringing the bakery’s identity into a wider fashion collaboration. Irn-Bru has taken a similar route with its own football-style top. These releases aren't identical, and it would be unfair to lump them together as if they were doing the same thing. A brand doesn’t need to be involved in football to make a good football-inspired shirt. But it does need to offer more than just putting its logo on a jersey.
That is where things start to feel repetitive. Take a recognisable brand, borrow the shape of a football kit, add a crest and some retro detailing, and you have something that taps into a trend people already understand. From a marketing perspective, it makes sense. Football shirts are recognisable, photograph well, and give brands a way to stand out without doing anything particularly unfamiliar. They also connect with an audience that might not otherwise be interested in the brand. But you can only use the same formula so many times before it starts to feel tired. The first unexpected collaboration might get people talking. The next few can still be interesting. After a while, though, you start to wonder whether the idea is being pushed forward or simply repeated because it works.
It Doesn’t Stop at the High Street
Streetwear brands have explored the relationship between football and fashion long before the latest wave of food and drink collaborations. Corteiz has released retro-inspired football jerseys, including a design inspired by Club América’s 1995 home kit, while Carhartt WIP teamed up with F.C. Real Bristol on a collection of football shirts, warm-up jackets, and supporter accessories. BAPE, Off-White and C.P. Company have also explored the relationship between football and streetwear through their own designs and collaborations. Music has followed a similar path, with artists and festivals using football-style jerseys for merchandise and giving fans an alternative to the standard tour T-shirt.
These ideas work for a reason. Football shirts have a visual identity that other clothing often lacks. They can be colourful, loud and a little unusual, and they carry associations that go beyond the design itself. For streetwear brands, that makes them an obvious source of inspiration. Some collaborations also have a more natural connection to the game, whether through a club, a supporter community or a shared design history. Others are simply interested in what a football shirt can look like outside the context of a match. Neither approach is necessarily wrong.
The problem is that so many industries now draw from the same visual language. A football-inspired shirt can be a fashion statement, a marketing exercise, a joke, or merchandise. Sometimes it can be all four. But when the same aesthetic appears everywhere, it becomes less distinctive. What once felt like an unexpected crossover starts to look like another way to sell a product. Football shirts have influenced fashion for decades. The current trend hasn’t created that relationship, but it has made it much harder to ignore just how many brands want in.
Have We Reached Peak Football Shirt?
Fashion moves in cycles. Blokecore won’t be the last trend to bring football shirts into the mainstream, and it certainly won’t be the first to make brands rethink how they use football in their designs. Eventually, something else will catch people’s attention. The question is what happens to all these shirts when that time comes. There is room for humour, creativity and collaborations that bring together things you wouldn’t normally associate with one another. The issue isn’t that Toby Carvery, Greggs or a streetwear label has decided to make a football shirt. Nor is it about who should be allowed to wear one. The assumption is that the football shirt aesthetic will do all the work.
The best football shirts have something that makes them memorable. It might be an unusual design, a connection to a particular team or a season that supporters still talk about years later. Sometimes it is simply a shirt that looks so good that people continue wearing it long after the players have moved on. You can't always manufacture those things by adding a collar, a crest, and a few retro details. That doesn’t mean every shirt needs a story. But if every brand is going to make one, the design has to offer something beyond looking like a football shirt.
The current trend reminds us how far football’s influence has spread beyond the pitch. It has shaped how people dress, how brands market themselves, and how different communities express their interests. That is worth celebrating. But there is a difference between football inspiring something new and football simply becoming a look that everyone wants to copy. Football shirts have spent years becoming more than just football shirts. It would be a shame if they ended up becoming just another product.
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