Ligue 1 kit reviews - 2008-09 season

Ready for some more opinions on the Kit Aesthetics of French Football? We present part two of Chris Ketcham's Ligue 1 roundup. We last found him putting the red and white simplicity of Nancy in its proper place. Let's pick things back up with Les Canaris of Nantes...

FC Nantes, a storied team from Western France is playing with Kit Aesthetics house money. They just changed their crest to this. It used to be this one—which is not as cool at all so that’s a good change. I’m quite happy with the home jersey. Yellow with green trim, though it might not look that great on lily-white Northern European types, it’s still a cool shirt. The away kit is unique as well. Grey with yellow trim. Something that we don’t see every day, but I think it works.

Located on the French Riviera, Nice is a town that has been around since forever. With all that time on their hands I’d hope that they could come up with a great and unique uniform design. Looking at the kits I see that Nice, France is another in a long line of cities that have destroyed my hopes. Thanks Nice. The home kit has the classic black and red vertical stripes most commonly associated with AC Milan. In the case of Nice, the stripes are much narrower. The away uniform is white with a black and red stripe and roughly 200 advertising logos. Look at that thing! With all that said, I do like their team badge—it has that old European bird thing going. I’m sure that’s a black eagle or something similar from a royal family—which all seemed to have black birds as their symbol back then.

Olympique Lyon has been beating up the competition winning the league trophy for the past seven seasons—a feat almost unheard of in a major league sport. Though boring and white, I like the home uniform. The red and blue stripe makes it nice to have. Not really into the away shirt. Yes, it’s a slightly interesting shade of blue, but there is too much of it. Due to Lyon’s top finishing in League 1 they are once again in the Champion’s League. With that honor they have an ugly bright yellow shirt to wear while they are playing. The team badge is fine. I have a soft spot for old-timey lions, but the main sans serif font kind of kills the mood.

Olympique Marseille - I had the chance to go to one of the official Olympique Marseille team stores while traveling last year. It was just like the team store for any American sports team: a metric ass load of clothes and knick knacks emblazoned with club logo. Check this stuff out! As I understand it, one of the owners of Adidas also owns this French club, so they have even more crap than normal. The white home kit with blue piping is not so bad as far as dull all-white kits go. Their away kit is so grand that yours truly bought one. How many football jerseys have you seen that sort of look like cardigan sweaters? Answer: JUST THIS ONE. One of my favorite jerseys by far. I don’t really even like the team all that much, but as a dude this is not the first time I have been attracted to something just based on looks. For some reason they have not taken this same suave, sophisticated look with them to their Europe games. Their third jersey is a dull gold and black, which in my mind will ensure mediocrity on the playing field. The badge is okay.

Paris Saint-Germain, PSG for short, are supposed to be the glory boys of French soccer since they are from one of the grandest cities in all the world and all that. They haven’t been so hot these past few seasons, but whatever. I like their home uniform fine. Relatively unique design and color combination. Theoretically the away kit should also appeal to me, since it’s gray and red, but somehow even though I usually like most of the fancy Nike kits, this one doesn’t gel. The team shield is a nice round one, while I have not researched this at all I’m sure the thing under the Eiffel Tower is a baby crib representing Paris as the symbolic birth place of bad French waiter attitudes revered the world over (just to prevent any angry emails/strikes from the French waiters, most of the ones I have encountered have all been really nice).

Saint-Etienne is known as Les Verts (the greens) and have a constitutional duty to have lots of green in their uniforms, and that suits me just fine. This picture of their home kit doesn’t do it justice. The reason is that the person running the website smartly decided to tone down the garish fluorescent green/yellow of the trim color. I have seen that uniform from close range, and trust me it is hideous—in a very awesome way. I really liked it, but the KA girlfriend was not impressed. The same website color diluting trick is used for the away kit, but you can see the crazy color a little better. I like their third Euro kit, even if it’s not super inspired, or rather, very close to Racing Santander in Spain. I don’t know about you, but when I see the color green and a five-pointed start I think Heineken beer, not that I like it much; the Saint Etienne logo needs to be changed…

Sochaux has kits made by Italian brand Lotto, and I mention that because I tend to like a good number of their uniform designs. The home jersey for Sochaux is kind of cool—but a bit ref-like. I’d like to see a closer picture of the away uniform, because from what I can see it is rather cool. Sky blue with yellow trim is rather audacious, but in a good way; I like all the little advertising logos as well. It all blends together, and one can see where the uniforms got their inspiration: the team shield. Not too shabby, but it could use some zip.

Stade Rennais, or Rennes for short, is a team from the Brittany region of France. I have a genuine rooting interest in this team because one of my best pals lives in the city. I root for their uniforms as well, but that doesn’t help them too much. Rennes’ colors are red, black and white. The home kits, made by Puma, are mostly red with black spots here and there. The away uniform is white and dull, but with that said I do like these uniforms since I am not 100% neutral like I usually am with club kits. Their logo strikes me as a bit odd—it looks like two dogs fighting over a ball.

Toulouse is a poorly named city to have a team named after if you happen to speak English, but so is Brazilian great KaKa, and he seems to be doing just fine. The home uniform, assuming this picture isn’t really some sort of nightmare half-shirt is kind of gross, and kind of cool. I’m not convinced purple is the best football color, but it’s not that bad. I like how the sponsor’s logo “E” contrasts with the vertical stripes. The away shirt is white with purple trim. Not bad, not great. If you love Toulouse FC, but hate purple, there is this third jersey, which is the woeful black with lots of pink trim combination. Honestly. Who thinks this is a good idea? Then again their team crest isn’t all that spectacular.

Valenciennes has the most common of color combos: red and white. I tend to dog teams like this, but their kits are sharp… I like their “V” crest on the chest, and it looks better than the Bordeaux V. Home and Away have the red/white flipped accordingly. The third kit combines Blue with a yellow “V.” Did you notice the team badge? Look at the shield a little more closely. A swan from the neck up! Cool.

Kit Aesthetics is a column by Chris Ketcham about football kits - the good, the bad and the (very) ugly. He contributes articles to Albion Road when his rock'n'roll career allows.