Everton’s new home kit design concepts explained

Everton and hummel’s first collaboration last year mostly received positive feedback from fans, and they continued to do more good work together for their second go-around.

Revealed promptly at 8am on the respective Twitter accounts, the new home kit carries all the best features from last year with the classic chevrons that hummel is famous for on the royal blue shirt with white and yellow trim.

There is much, much more too though in this kit, with hummel reaching back into Merseyside history as far back as World War I for the main design elements in this shirt. The ‘dazzle camouflage’ was a revolutionary concept from artist Norman Wilkinson, that consisted of complex geometric-shape patterns made up of contrasting colours that interrupted and intersected each other.

The use of the dazzle pattern is inspired by the role of the city of Liverpool and its docks in painting naval ships with the inventive and bold livery during the First World War. The brainchild of a British marine artist, the use of contrasting shapes, tones and colours proved highly effective at disguising a vessel’s size, speed, distance and direction, confusing the enemy at sea.

To this day, the practice is celebrated in Liverpool through a working Mersey ferry ‘Everybody Razzle Dazzle’, painted to commemorate the dazzle ships in 2014 as part of the city’s First World War centenary activities.

Preorder the new men’s home kit and for the first time, the women’s kit as well along with new goal kit at the Fanatics Everton online store here*.

As well as the integrated dazzle pattern, Everton’s 2021/22 home kit features a yellow and white trim on both the sleeves and its collar, which is rounded. hummel’s iconic chevrons also appear in white on the shirt and royal blue on the shorts and socks.

Mesh panelling under the arms and down the sides works alongside vents at the bottom of the shirt to ensure breathability and enable high-level performance, while the polyester created using hummel’s ECO8 technology gives the kit a rich, silk-like feel.

The goalkeeper kits has been redesigned too like last year, similarly inspired by the dazzle pattern with the colours reminiscent of the bright kits worn in the mid-90s by Neville Southall.

Alan McTavish, Commercial Director at Everton, said:

“On the back of last season’s home shirt becoming the fastest-selling in the Club’s history, we are excited to launch our 2021/22 strip and hope it will once again prove popular with Evertonians all across the world.

“hummel’s creative process of how to take something like dazzle, which forms an interesting part of our city’s history, and weave it into our kits has been really interesting to see. They have also once again shown their commitment to our fans by going to great lengths to involve them in the launch of this kit to illustrate the Club’s popularity and how it touches people in all four corners of the globe.”

Allan Vad Nielsen, hummel’s CEO, said:

“When it came to creating our latest home kit for Everton, we wanted to deliver something that was striking and different but still respectful of the Club’s traditions.

“We have drawn on the city of Liverpool’s links with the dazzle pattern to do that, giving it a historical nod, but also put fans at the centre of our launch in celebration of Everton’s ever-growing global popularity and exciting future ahead.”

Everton’s 2021/22 home kit is available to pre-order now online at evertondirect.com and will be available to buy online and in store from Thursday 15 July.

*- Royal Blue Mersey will receive a portion of any sales made through this link