Last week Nike launched their new World Cup kits for their Nike sponsored teams headed to South Africa. They brought out a player from each country to showcase the new kits and be available for questions. With their recent acquisition of Umbro, they also brought out Jermaine Jenas and the new England away kit and reminded us all that they are now the worlds biggest soccer brand. Nike also brought out the creative director for Nike Soccer, Phil Dickinson, to discuss the kit designs in more detail. Hit the jump for more images and details on the kits.
One of the most interesting and amazing things about these kits is how much thought and effort went into using recycled materials to construct the uniforms. Each jersey is made from 8 recycled plastic bottles and helps to save raw materials and reduces energy consumption.
To make the 2010 national team kits, Nike’s fabric suppliers sourced discarded plastic bottles from Japanese and Taiwanese landfill sites and then melted them down to produce new yarn that was ultimately converted to fabric for the jerseys.
This process saves raw materials and reduces energy consumption by up to 30 percent compared to manufacturing virgin polyester. By using recycled polyester for its new range of national jerseys, Nike prevented nearly 13 million plastic bottles, totaling nearly 254,000 kg of polyester waste, from going into landfill sites. This amount would be enough to cover more than 29 football pitches. If the recycled bottles used to make the jerseys were laid end-to-end they would cover more than 3,000 kilometres, which is more than the entire coastline of South Africa.
The national team kits represent an important step in the process to make all Nike products more sustainable.
In addition, all the national team kits have been designed with each country’s national culture and identity in mind. Nike understands the pride athletes experience playing for their country so each kit has been designed to represent the heritage and unique football culture of the nine national teams.
we all got a plastic bottle with the Brazil jersey in it along with some information on the process that went into making the jerseys. And as a huge fan of packaging, the delivery mechanism Nike used for the jersey certainly caught my attention. I haven’t opened the bottle yet…I might keep this one as is.
When I first saw this wall of bottles I thought it was a clever use of bottles, but I didn’t think much more about it. finding out that 8 bottles were recycled to make each jersey suddenly made the wall of bottles much more relevant and tied things together nicely.
This is Nike Soccer creative director Phil Dickinson. I had about 100 questions I wanted to ask him, and could have chatted his ear off, but with limited time we only got in a few questions.
One of the things that Phil talked about was paying attention to details and tying in culturally important aspects for each countries jerseys. The US kit took inspiration from the 1950’s uniform when the US beat England, which I think many people expected to see. With detail and cultural significance in mind, on the underside of the US crest, close to the heart, is the much loved “Don’t tread on me” saying and artwork. I think this is something that the US players and fans alike will appreciate and I think it is a fantastic addition to the jerseys.
Dempsey got mobbed by reporters from around the world and everyone wanted to get some time and get their questions in with Deuce.
Combining soccer, design, technology and an eye on sustainability and consideration of the environment, Nike delivers big on their World Cup kits and gives another glimpse into what the future of performance soccer equipment is going to look like and how it is going to be designed.
that portugal kit is fugly
Wicked. Outstanding work as always.
A bit confused on the US uniform though – Dempsey should have a number on the front and on the shorts, like is shown in the photo, right? I wonder why they didn’t give him a uniform fully “done up”.
It appears none of the players have numbers on their kits in the top photo, so it wasn’t just Dempsey.
why is the england kit made by UMBRO here?
“With their recent acquisition of Umbro, they also brought out Jermaine Jenas and the new England away kit and reminded us all that they are now the worlds biggest soccer brand.”
shit, had no idea umbro was bought out by nike. that’s huge, man. weird thinking of england w/ nike in the future…
what’s up with the green charlie brown kit at the end? embarrassing.
Umbro will still function as an independent company, they’re just owned by Nike now. Sort of like Vitamin Water and Coke.
@FC Uptown, I guess they didn’t since the squad’s haven’t been announced. But I like it a lot better with the number.
England’s is head and shoulders above the other shit on show
@ KChad
The Portugal jersey might not look as bad with the number on the front.
AAAH ADIDAS RULES
Me encantan las playeras de nike!
the serbia away jersey looks really nice
i agree with Alfonso i seen the serbia away jersey and it looks really good i will buy it just to have but i am going for italia but will support my Serbian friends lool
ugly kid
i dreamed a terd that floats right by
:):):):):):):):):):)
football like my bum