Kit Culture: how the football shirt became the outfit

Walk through town on a Saturday and count the football shirts. Some of the people wearing them are on their way to watch a match. Plenty aren't. The jersey, once something you wore to the stadium and threw in the wash, has become one of the most worn pieces of streetwear around, and it's being styled with wide jeans, long skirts, loafers and, yes, heels.

01 · Off the pitchFrom the stands to the streets

The look got a name in 2022, when TikTok creators in the UK and the US started posting outfits built around vintage football tops, loose jeans and old-school Adidas trainers. They called it blokecore, borrowing the matchday uniform of the British football fan of decades past and turning it into something you could wear to brunch.

The fun part is that you don't need to follow football to pull it off. A football shirt is really a piece of graphic design you can wear: bold colours, a crest, a sponsor logo and a little bit of nostalgia. That's why a retro Brazil shirt looks just as at home with baggy denim in Nairobi as it does in Rio.

Retro or new, the shirt has become everyday wear. Photos: Pexels / Unsplash

02 · The Naija effectThe shirt that broke the internet

If one shirt proved how far a kit could travel beyond the pitch, it was Nigeria's 2018 World Cup home kit. Nike revealed it in February 2018, and its bold green-and-white feather print, with black-and-white sleeves inspired by an eagle's wing, paid tribute to the Super Eagles side that took Nigeria to its first World Cup in 1994.

When it finally went on sale on 1 June 2018, hundreds of fans queued outside Nike's Oxford Street store in London, and the shirt sold out on launch day. A figure of three million pre-orders was widely reported at the time, though it was never independently confirmed. Either way, the queues said enough.

The shirt went on to be shortlisted for the Beazley Designs of the Year at London's Design Museum, in the same year as Rihanna's Fenty Beauty and the costumes from Black Panther. Today the V&A museum in London holds one in its collection.

A museum piece. Not bad for something designed to be sweated in.

03 · Fashion walks inThe runway joins the team

High fashion noticed. At its Fall 2020 show in Paris in March 2020, staged on a flooded runway, Balenciaga, then led by creative director Demna, sent out full football kits, socks and boots included, with the house's own name in the spot where a club sponsor would usually sit.

Three years later the crossover went official. In February 2023, Adidas released new Jamaica national team kits designed by British designer Grace Wales Bonner, drawing on Jamaican style for the Reggae Boyz and Reggae Girlz. The traffic now runs both ways: fashion houses borrow from football, and football brings in fashion designers so a new shirt feels like a drop, not a uniform.

04 · Africa's runway momentThe Buccaneers hit fashion week

The newest chapter was written in Johannesburg just over a week ago. On Saturday 24 October 2026, Orlando Pirates became the first Premier Soccer League club to take part in South African Fashion Week, with a field-to-fashion show at The Forum in Hyde Park.

The star was the club's new adidas third kit for the 2026/27 season: a dark maroon shirt with a geometric print in red, dusky orange and light purple, inspired by the rooftops of Soweto, where the club's story began in 1937. Players past and present walked the runway in looks by South African designers including David Tlale, Nao Serati and Yona.

The shirt went on sale at the club's own stores on 25 October, with a wider release through adidas from 30 October. It is the clearest sign yet that African football clubs see their kits the way fashion brands see a collection.

05 · Closer to homeThe mitumba goldmine

In Kenya, jersey culture runs through mitumba. The country imports about 180,000 tonnes of second-hand clothing a year, and somewhere in those bales are genuine football shirts from clubs all over the world.

In Kibera, the hunt has become a craft. Antonio Massari, an Italian collector who volunteers as an English teacher there, has built a collection of more than 800 shirts, checking the fabric, stitching and labels to tell originals from copies. Shirts that cost a few dollars locally can sell for many times that once they reach collectors in Europe.

Which means the vintage shirt someone in London paid a small fortune for could easily have passed through a Nairobi market first. Next time you're digging through a pile, look closer at that crest.

06 · The style guideHow to wear it

There are no rules, only a few tricks that work every time.

The one thing to remember: let the shirt be the only sporty piece in the outfit, and dress everything else up around it.

07 · Your turnPick your shirt

Next year East Africa hosts the Africa Cup of Nations, with Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania staging the tournament from 19 June to 17 July 2027. Expect to see a lot more Harambee Stars shirts on the street, matchday or not.

So tell us: which shirt in your wardrobe would you never give away? Find us on Instagram at @flavor.africacorp and show us how you wear yours.