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The smell of victory: boom in classic football shirts shows no sign of fading

What was once simply a garment that declared your affiliation to a club is now a global business earning millions from collectors of vintage kits

Building their company from scratch, they have experience of sweeping up kits from the floors of dressing rooms - “We said: ‘Just give us the accreditation we’ll take the strips off the players backs’” – and of hand-delivering shirts to those who bought them, the better to understand their customer base. I think for a lot of people, they might not know the specifics of what those clubs stand for, but they just look amazing, don’t they?” The clothing trading app Depop say Brazilian shirts are the biggest seller in an “incredibly popular” part of its business. It strikes deals with clubs and federations to provide official retro shirts which imitate the designs of years past, without the manufacturers’ logo (recently added: the long- and short-sleeve version of the Scotland kit from … 1967).

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