When Nike secured the Fédération Française de Football (FFF) contract, it meant the end of the adidas era - and what an era. All eyes were on the American manufacturer to see what they’d come up with for France.

The Home kit was a deep blue with a neat navy collar, but it was the Away that really grabbed our attention. Taking a huge risk in appropriating the cultural stereotype of the horizontally-striped marinèire-style top, Nike’s gamble paid off and an iconic shirt for the ages was born.

Club Atlético Boca Juniors of Buenos Aires is one of the planet’s most famous sides. The Argentine giants’ colours, even with instances of variation, are as iconic as they come.

Sportswear product and graphic designer Emre Gultekin more than does the history justice, even including the pre-1907 years, when Boca wore black and white stripes, sky blue, and then thin blue stripes.

One of the most storied North American football biographies is that which we file under the name “New York Cosmos”. And it has an iconic kit history to match.

The current team bearing the Cosmos name, with authentic lineage, is based in Uniondale on Long Island. This incarnation was formed in 2010 and plays in the club’s iconic white - with a fitting green Third kit - in the National Independent Soccer Association, but 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of the original side’s formation.

The 1987-89 Hummel Tottenham Hotspur Home kit is one of the most infamous in the history of English football. Ironically, its infamy doesn’t come by way of either of its seasons in official use. 

Debuted in Spurs’ 1987 FA Cup Final defeat to Coventry City, some players wore the shirt with a sponsor - the alcohol brand, Holsten - and on others it was nowhere to be seen.

The 1992-93 season is one which is held in high regard by Aston Villa fans. Though they ended the domestic campaign trophyless, the West Midlands side gave eventual inaugural Premier League champions Manchester United a decent run for their money - beating them at Villa Park (along with a League Cup victory) and avoiding defeat at Old Trafford - and they looked very stylish doing it.

We recently featured a Liverpool FC kit history provided by Turkish graphic designer and sportswear designer Emre Gultekin, and below you’ll find him moving his sights onto his country's national team.

Turkey, for most of their existence, have had one of the most recognisable examples of “colours” in international football. Much like Brazil and Argentina, amongst others, the historical combination has been simple but specific to the team. It has, however, gone through periods of variation.

When you think of brown on football kits, what comes to mind? FC St. Pauli? Italy, perhaps? Special lederhosen-styled German club kits? Coventry City? Coventry City.

The Sky Blues became known for a slightly different coloration in the late 1970s, as that decade rubbed off on the club in certain matches away from Highfield Road. Admiral’s tramlines would be seen on plenty of kits, but this example focussed on by John Devlin was one of the most shocking, and now appears in plenty of “Worst Kits Ever” lists.

Some football kits, save for competition patches, take identically the same form in every match they’re worn in, for the entirety of their tenure. Then there are kits like the one Queen’s Park Rangers wore between 1983 and 1985.

Rumours suggest that while the 2020-21 Internazionale Home shirt from Nike will carry a serpent-esque zigzag pattern, there will be a less subtle “Il Biscione” flavour to much of the training and leisurewear ranges. Graphic designer and sportswear designer Emre Gultekin certainly didn’t hold back in that regard with these designs from way back in 2013.

This beautifully-rendered Leeds United Home kit - as worn in the English Football League First Division in 1990-91 and 1991-92 - represents the last first-choice strip of a pre-Premier League Champions of England.

Leeds released a new Umbro kit on their return to the English top flight in 1990, and that tastefully-trimmed design - featuring measured use of secondary and tertiary blue and yellow on the by-now-recognisable white - with iconic Top Man sponsor, was carried over to the glorious 1991-92 season.