OPINION
With yesterday’s launch of the new All Blacks kit, Winston Aldworth gets top fashion advice from Viva expert Emma Gleason to rank the jerseys worn by the All Blacks at every World Cup.
It’s hard to beat a classic: A starched white collar, more likely to be touched by the player’s own mullet than some no-name, opposition defender, and a good bit of loose-fitting black cotton-wool mix. These Canterbury Clothing Company jerseys would look good on anyone – the fact they were draped over the shoulders of men like John Kirwan, Michael Jones, Wayne Shelford and Joe Stanley elevates them to the top of the pantheon.
The clean, black kit made the sky-blue, blood-red and surrender-white mash-up of France look cluttered in the final.
Viva commercial editor Emma Gleason said the 1987 jersey was one of the best iterations of all time.
“The contrast collar, a classic jersey element that we don’t see much of in the field anymore, frames the face – great for black and white photos — and highlights the large, likely embroidered silver fern emblem,” says Gleason. “A baggy fit with long sleeves, this isn’t the skin-tight form seen today, and calls back to a time when athletic uniforms weren’t unrelentingly technical. Stakes (and pay) were lower, but maybe the game was better? Great socks.”
The evolution of the All Blacks jersey moved more between 1995 and 1999 than it had in decades. In comes the German manufacturer! Out goes the white collar! In go the French try-scorers!
The arrival of the Mao collar took All Blacks replica jerseys from being strictly for the hardcore fans, to actually looking rather smart.
It’s not strictly a jersey issue, but the kit was marred by having players numbers marked on their shorts. We know which one is Jonah, thanks mate.
Gleason, of Viva, notes the more minimal nature of the design.
“Rugby kits were evolving swiftly as aesthetics changed and technical innovations came into textiles; seen here, Lomu’s uniform is starkly different to the more old-school jerseys on Les Bleus behind him,” explains Gleason. “This jersey set the foundation for the jerseys we see today.”
By removing the odd little collar that had blighted the 2011 strip, Adidas tidied things up and returned to a classic theme. The players, likewise, improved on their 2011 efforts, bagging the title at a canter.
“So pared back, to the point they were almost boring, while these are winning jerseys, they’re probably my least favourite – losing any nod to the heritage of the game and players past [beyond the emblems] and lacking the striking contrast of white with black,” says Gleason. “Also, the cut on the shorts could be better.”
The only notable change to the All Blacks match-day kit from four years previously was the addition of vast amounts of strapping holding together the bodies of the ageing players.
“Can’t beat a classic,” Gleason says. “While it may have soaked up sweat and been easy to grab in a ruck or tackle, the knitted cotton jersey with a woven collar is still my favourite.”
Last hurrah for the white collar and the final World Cup appearance for Canterbury as the jersey manufacturer. It was also the first time the All Blacks jersey was nudged from top perch as coolest merchandise on show – that slot was reserved for the Nelson Mandela-approved Springbok No 6.
A casual observation suggests the collars were getting smaller, but it could simply be that players’ chests and shoulders were getting bigger.
It probably wasn’t part of the manufacturer’s brief, but at least the black shirt hid the puke stains from the food poisoning.
“An interesting period; for now, the woven white collar remains, although shrunken. A good era,” says Gleason.
“Bugger it,” said the designers, throwing their hands in the air. “Let’s have no collar at all!”
Working on the 2019 kit, adidas brought in Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto and came up with a playing shirt that featured a classic crew neck. The collarless look marked a radical change to the jersey. With a sleek finish, the playing strip also featured barely visible koru and fern motifs, a precursor to the squiggles on the 2023 strip.
“By 2019, Normcore – the trend for plain, basic clothing – and the athleisurefication of civilian style seems to have bled into jerseys too. This is, essentially, a crew-neck T-shirt,” Gleason says. “However, in the hands of visionary Yamamoto – designed by his Y-3 label, an ongoing collaboration with adidas – it’s strong, powerful and almost esoteric. Rendered in high-calibre fabrication, woven with a pattern formed by hand-drawn koru and fern, it also has the innovative or ominous (depending on which side of the fence you’re on) honours of being fully automated.”
Last outing for jerseys that non-athletic fans could comfortably wear.
“Interesting proportions here,” notes says Gleason. “The curved, collarless placket design doesn’t do deltoids or neck muscles a favour, and this proved to be short-lived.”
The return of a white collar was heralded as a connection to a bygone age – but it was a bizarre little strip of white, not really a collar at all. Perhaps it was an attempt to get some distance from the grey monstrosity of Cardiff 2007.
Gleason agrees. “This presents a nice nod to heritage, while still answering the technical demands of uniforms as the sport, and fabrics evolved to be high-performance.”
Tighter, figure-hugging jerseys were supposed to make it harder for opposition players to drag the All Blacks to the ground. Which was all well and good for the buff young players, but scant consolation for beer-bellied fans squeezing into their expensive replica kit.
In one of the darkest days in New Zealand rugby history, the All Blacks were wearing a bizarre lighter strip. Their grey jerseys in the quarter-final against France reflected the national mood after a miserable defeat.
Gleason is less offended by the grey than others. “They took a risk, and I appreciate that,” Gleason says. “Sometimes you need to break up year after year of black base colours, even if just to remind yourself why it does work. We have enough grey in our lives already.”
With way too many squiggles, the latest RWC shirt looks alarmingly like something you’d expect to see a tour guide wearing as they greet visitors from a cruise ship. The 14 different-sized squiggled ferns look a bit, well, simple. It takes some doing to detract from the blackness of an All Black jersey, but this shirt has done it, and it certainly fails the Would-Pinetree-Wear-It test.
The ferns run through the shirt material, celebrating the diversity of the squad, with the celebrated silver fern emblem on the chest playing the part as the 15th fern. A cynic might say 14 ferns also acknowledges the number of players they often have on the field during crunch matches.
The jersey has “ergonomic side panels” and Adidas worked with French streetwear designer Fey the Wolf on the strip. It’s the most influence a French designer has had on what the All Blacks wear since the Gauls opted for a darker shade of blue in the quarter-final of 2007, forcing the All Blacks into the cursed grey shirts.
“A far cry, and a long way, from the jerseys of yore,” notes Gleason. “It looks like shiny polyester, and it is, knitted from a high-performance yarn made from 89 per cent recycled polyester (everyone is using that fabric these days). It comes in a bias cut for ‘extra compression’, and this may look better on the field than under studio lights.
“There’s a naivete to the fern motif that I think does the significance of the symbol a disservice. Next time, I hope they choose an artist from Aotearoa.”
Fabien Galthie has picked a second-choice squad for July's NZ Tests.