English shoe company team up with Ribero to create a football shirt that will have you longing for the days of Football Italia, Norwich, (yes Norwich) finishing 3rd in the newly formed Premier League and players making lunging tackles that would have you covering your eyes.
Based in Lancashire, LANX is a manufacturer that simply does not underestimate the power of footwear. Shoes, with heritage, class and most importantly a twist. Shoes that look good for just about any occasion – made form the finest leather and British sourced textiles.
So why, you might ask, is a stylish formal wear shoe company designing and creating a football shirt? Well, it’s the brain-child of LANX founder, Marv who, when thinking about his love of football quite simply just wanted to create something that would celebrate one of his favourite periods in football – the beloved 90’s.
“ Back in the 90's my mother always found summer holidays a tough gig. I was a restless young lad, bored and full of energy. The only thing that kept me entertained and prevented my mother from killing me were; Saved by The Bell, recorded Football Italia episodes and colouring in.
I call it colouring in, however looking back it was more like designing. I'd spend hours designing football shirts. I'd try and predict what next seasons Premier League shirts would look like, or what a Juventus 4th kit could/ should look like just incase it was needed last minute by the clubs top brass. At the end of the summer my mother would judge which shirt was the winner and she'd then send it off to the club shop for their perusal (at least she said she did). Safe to say none of my designs were ever used, perhaps I was bad at designing football shirts?
Fast forward 20 years and i'm still the same restless (slightly older) young lad wanting to see my own football shirt in production. So a few months back I set Matt, LANX head of design, the task of designing and producing a LANX football shirt.”
With a wealth of choice of shirts for inspiration, (the 90’s are the golden years for football shirts as you know) Marv simply set out three basic points for his head of design to follow:
- A football shirt that can be worn to the footy but also casually out and about
- Design to have a retro vibe, links to the 90's and connections to Lancashire
- Ideally work with a UK based sportswear brand
Simple enough, no?
It soon dawned on the pair though that to achieve their vision they would need to choose the right manufacturer. Enter Ribero.
Back in the 90's Ribero were one of the big boys in the football kit world. In the first ever Premier League season, way back in 1992-93, Ribero were suppliers to more teams than Adidas and Nike combined. Only Umbro supplied more team kits.
Coventry, Crystal Palace, Norwich and Wimbledon's "The Crazy Gang" all sported Ribero kits back in the day. During the 1991/92 season they also supplied two rival Lancashire clubs, Blackburn Rovers and Burnley FC, the same year they both won league promotions.
After successfully tracking down the vintage brand and the two agreeing to partner on the project, Head of design for LANX, Matt began starting to dig through he Ribero archives for inspiration and found some unique designs that brought back fond memories of a great era in English football. He was able to identify that a number of key design features could be used. The first being the wavy torso print used in a Blackburn home shirt and the signature Ribero pattern as sported by Burnley, Norwich and Coventry.
With a big part of the brief requiring the shirts to be worn casually, the design required neutral colours and the thickest shirt material Ribero had available. LANX also set about creating a bespoke 90's inspired collar design with a subtle colour combination of black and anthracite grey.
The end result is a stunning throwback that sees each of the shirts come with the Ribero logo and various LANX logos throughout the design. Both the Home & Away shirts have the number 20 on the back, to signify the year they were released.
The LANX Home & Away football shirts are now on sale and can be viewed here. With only 50 of each shirt available, it’s safe to say they will not be hanging around for long.
In our humble opinion, this is one of the strongest football shirt homages to the glory years of the early 90’s, we have seen for some time.
LANX, Ribero – we salute you.