Labrum London has designed Premier League giant Arsenal’s away kit for the upcoming 2024/25 season for its men’s and women’s teams, The Business of Fashion has learned.
Sierra-Leonian-born Foday Dumbuya, who founded the London-based menswear brand in 2014, is the first-ever independent designer to create an on-field kit for a Premier League team. The collaboration comes amid increasing crossovers between the football and fashion industries. Previously, the role of external fashion brands or designers was limited to creating one-off jerseys or fan collections.
“We’ve been moving towards this moment for a long time now, but were waiting to find the right partner to make it a reality,” said Inigo Turner, design director at Adidas (the sportswear brand is Arsenal’s kit partner, and manufactures the team’s gear as well as distributing replicas for fans).
Part of the reason that Dumbuya — a lifelong Arsenal fan himself — was approached for the collaboration was because his work through Labrum aligned with what Adidas and the club wanted to celebrate in the collection. Arsenal was one of the first teams in the Premier League to champion the influence of players from the African diaspora in the 1980s and 1990s, at a time when foreign players were not universally embraced across European football.
“I remember one year when Arsenal fielded nine Black players in the starting lineup,” Dumbuya said. “I’ve always had that image in my mind since then.”
The jersey carries red, black and green, the colours of the Pan-African flag, and is also adorned by Labrum’s signature zig-zag patterns, a reference to the concept of migration that inspires much of Dumbuya’s work, he told BoF. The brand’s trademark “Nomoli” figure is also incorporated into the jerseys. The brand also designed two training jackets which plays on the same colour scheme, as well as a T-shirt, jumper and accompanying set of track pants to go with it. The new gear was modelled in a launch campaign by Arsenal players including star forwards Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli, as well as Kim Little and Leah Williamson, captain and vice-captain, respectively, of Arsenal Women FC.
The first-of-its-kind collaboration was facilitated by Adidas, Arsenal’s technical kit manufacturer and also a partner of Labrum in recent years. The brand has provided footwear for Labrum’s London Fashion Week runway shows for several seasons and the pair have worked on product collaborations including a limited edition pair of Sambas, which released last autumn. Eagle-eyed fans would have spotted hints of Arsenal’s upcoming involvement when club legend Ian Wright walked the runway to open the brand’s Autumn/Winter 2024 show wearing a Labrum-designed hat bearing Arsenal’s famous “Gunner” logo on one side.
The Arsenal players are not the only athletes that Dumbuya will outfit this year. Also arranged through Labrum’s Adidas deal, the brand designed performance and training wear for Team Sierra Leone to wear at the Olympic games later this month.
