In a social media savvy world, cycling teams have become increasingly slick in maximising the publicity out of what they have now decided must be designated “#NewKitDay.” Sadly, as chronicled many times on this blog, the standard of designs has slipped in recent years, with corporate-friendly, non-quirky designs being the norm as one block of colour replaces the zebra stripes and unconventional logo placement of the past. The argument is that in a sport that needs to attract investment, you need to have something open to all, rather than making people go “urgh”, hence the plethora of black and blue, and more recently, red, that saturates the peloton.
As a self-appointed expert on cycling kit (ha!) I’d thus like to take the time to lay out some rules for cycling jerseys. Some are ones that seemingly already exist, others are ones that should. Clearly, fashion is largely subjective and down to personal taste and opinion, but then this is 2019, so if I state my opinion and you disagree with it, you’re the enemy, a Nazi, and deserve a painful death 🙂
Without any further ado, and in no particular order, here are those Fashion Rules. More may be added as they are thought up.
Your kit should not look like the product you are advertising
This is key. Whilst you’re essentially a moving billboard, part of the joy is that nobody really knows or cares about what niche euro product the team is actually flogging (though if you are, you can always explore this article). Thus, under no circumstances should you be keen to try and make your kit representative of the product you sell.
Teams who have failed at this simple task include Milram, who decided that they should look like the cows that produce the dairy products they sell, Footon-Servetto, who sold insoles and so put a massive footprint on their jersey, and perhaps most famously French DIY chain Castorama, who decided that their kit should look like a workman’s overalls.
A special place in hell is however reserved for Carrera, who sold jeans, and who decided to make their riders wear denim-esque shorts, complete with what looked like a fly and zip. For shame.
Shorts must be of a dark colour, or at the very least, have a black cod-piece
I quite like white cycling shorts, but this seems to have become one of those things that has become the norm thanks to the influence of the Anglo-speaking market. Lance Armstrong famously wore black shorts, as have Sky, and this trend seems to have spread to the Euro teams.
Still, some teams have tried to look interesting with white shorts, but have been careful to avoid the possibility of things being see-through in wet weather by building in darker “cod-pieces” to avoid offending people’s sensibilities too much.
You must publish a sycophantic, self-congratulatory marketing piece with your new jersey to explain how it is redefining the fashion norms.
Clearly, this is about the smarmy bastards that are Rapha. They’re big on marketing talk, which you have to be when you business model is to sell dark pastel coloured jerseys with minor tweaks every ear, but in 2019 they outdid themselves when they found themselves sponsoring the Slipstream squad.
Slipstream have a history of garish designs built around an argyle pattern, whilst Rapha’s colour palette is strictly dull and dark, so their combination was going to require an interesting alchemy. They basically had to justify two clashing cultures could merge. And boy, was it pretentious, claiming they were “disrupting” [?] the peloton with their “progressive approach while building on the strong design heritage of both EF and the team’s history of bold kit.” This was after saying they had left the sport as their “pared down designs” had not been in line with the “discordant kit of the time”, and taking a dig at everyone else by claiming that “WorldTour team kits now follow a similar level of good taste.”
Talking about good taste then unveiling what looks like a pink shirt that has been through the wash with a blue one is an interesting tactic, it has to be said.
Don’t design your jersey so that it looks like the rider is wearing a gilet.
Gilet’s aren’t a fashionable item, so why make your jersey look like it’s covered by one by having the sleeves a different colour to the main body? It’s the sort of jersey that looks good in publicity photos, but not on the road. Much better to have a two-tone jersey with the change at the chest, not the sleeves.
Don’t design your jersey so that it looks like the rider is wearing bib shorts over the jersey.
Davitamon Lotto previously made this ghastly error, and the original Tinkoff outfit looked similar. Bib shorts are weird enough to explain as they are – making your jersey look like you have them over the top of your kit is even worse.
Consider the effect your colour panel placement will have on the rider’s perceived physique.
Nobody wants to look fat in their cycling kit, yet some teams still persist with putting in curves in all the wrong places, which just makes everyone look podgy. This is especially noticeable on mostly white jerseys. Basically, sharp lines = good, curves = bad.
Your jersey should have three main colours – no more.
There is a thing in fashion called the colour wheel, which basically shows what colours go well with one another by what adjoins. Being If you pick one base colour, there are only two sides to go to. So don’t go mad and have five different coloured panels all over your jersey. Teams seem to follow this pretty well as well, even when white and/or black is one of the main colours. Clearly, Mapei is the exception that proves the rule here.
National Champions jerseys must not just be the standard jersey with a stripe version of the nation’s flag on.
A many time complaint on this blog, National Champions jersey’s must be properly honoured rather than just being an afterthought version of the team’s actual jersey.
Leader’s jerseys should be matched with shorts by everyone other than grand tour contenders, who must wear them on the last day of the race.
Why do Grand Tour riders get a pass here? Well, they need to be calculating and modest, and having all-yellow shoes, saddle, bike, bar tape, helmet, shorts and shades might not look too brilliant if you, you know, crack and lose the jersey. The serious GC contenders thus don’t have to wear all that get up.
Everyone else though, I mean, dine out on it. This may be your one day in a leader’s jersey, so go the whole hog and put really go mad – the louder the better. People should be finding something that isn’t yellow, rather than noting something that is. This also applies to riders on the last stage of a Grand Tour (sans TTs) – you’ve won, recent history suggests the stage will be neutralised, so enjoy the fact your sponsor want you to have pink bolt heads or a yellow chain catcher all of a sudden, and match your shorts and socks accordingly. Even get your team to join in if you’d like.
Past national/world championship victories must be commemorated on both sleeves and the collar.
I personally blame Jonathan Vaughters for this one, for deciding that his Slipstream team would look “more uniform” without the national championship commemorative bling on their jerseys. But that’s what helps us identify riders and adds colour and zazz to the sport, Jonathan!
There also seems to a trend to minimise the amount of “disruption” these bands cause to the jersey, either by having logos interfere with them, or by relegating them so that they’re only one one sleeve rather than collars etc. Let’s have less of that – celebrate them properly, and extra marks for past world champions who put the rainbow bands on their shorts as well.
Symmetry is not necessarily a good thing.
Corporate likes symmetry – it sounds like “synergy” and that’s the best thing in the world according to CEOs [are you sure? – Ed.] But cycling jerseys should be a canvas for creativity, which means abandoning the need for everything to be a mirror image. There have been some great examples of asymmetry in the past – BMC’s pre WorldTour jersey being a key example – and we need more of that sort of thing back.
Even if you’ve told everyone your dark jersey has special cooling technology, switch to a lighter coloured jersey for the Tour de France “to aid cooling.”
Yep, calling Castelli out on this one. Every year, a manufacturer says they’ve invented “Cold-Black” or something like that, which will make everyone cool despite the infamous heat-retaining characteristics of a black jersey, then decides that actually, their team would benefit from a white jersey, which it then flogs as being better in the heat. Then they do the same thing EVERY year and NO ONE SEEMS TO NOTICE. I feel very Jacobim Mugatu about this one.
Your jersey should compliment your bike, and your bike should compliment your jersey.
This is here basically just to point out that Jumbo Visma have apparently come to peace with having a black and yellow jersey, astride a celeste green bicycle. Urgh. Bikes and jerseys should be a symbiotic relationship fella – maybe even design them that way.
The publicity photos for your new kit should involve humorous, homoerotic horseplay, and under no circumstances should be some dull, serious, mood-lit bore fest.
Sport is meant to be entertaining and fun, so all those moody photos of stern looking people in lycra are a bit oxymoronic and unpalatable. So teams should take the opportunity to flog their sponsor’s products in the jersey photoshoot, something Quick Step have mastered over the years.
Explore whether your sponsor’s logo can be exploited
This all began when Discovery Channel decided it didn’t really need the “channel” bit to be next to its name, which freed up more design possibilities for the kit. Radioshack and Lotto are other examples of teams who have used the design features of their sponsor’s logo to produce something more exuberant, typically by going oversized.
Just putting a big K on your back doesn’t count though, Katusha.
Sicycle 
This is a great article about the fashion rules for cycling jerseys! I especially like the point about avoiding jerseys that look like the product being advertised. It’s so important to find a jersey that you feel confident and comfortable in. I also agree that dark colors are generally more flattering than light colors.