The replacement of the traditional red and white St George’s Cross with a multicoloured one on Nike’s design for the Euros England shirt became such a hot topic in March that the prime minister got involved. The leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, called for the kit to be scrapped. But a new exhibition shows that England shirts, and the insignia on them, have been interpreted in multiple ways since the 1950s.
Umbro 100: Sportswear x Fashion, at Ambika Gallery in the University of Westminster, tells the story of Manchester-based brand Umbro. As the official outfitter of England for the majority of the period between 1954 and 2012 (Admiral also made some designs), the national team’s shirts are a key part of the exhibition, including a 2011 shirt designed by Peter Saville, the influential graphic designer famous for creating imagery for Factory Records in the 80s and redesigning the Burberry logo more recently. On it, the cross was purple. Yet there was no backlash.
The exhibition also features pictures of the red England kit worn when the team won the World Cup in 1966 (Umbro made the England and German kits), the blue pixelated design from 1990 that was never worn by the England team but became famous for its role in New Order’s World In Motion video, and a running vest with a red rose in the centre, from 1959. There are also more fashion-forward interpretations of the England shirts thanks to collaborations between Umbro and designers and brands including Palace, Kim Jones and Paul Smith, as well as the Saville design.
The curator, Andrew Groves, says the broad range of these items demonstrates how “the idea of what Englishness is is constantly being revised”.
He adds: “For example, the England rose is actually the Tudor rose, which is about uniting Lancaster and York together. People are constantly playing with bits of iconography and making them modern