Tag Archives: jerseys

A Fan Actually Designed Man City’s Third Kit With Puma’s AI Platform

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No matter how you feel about generative artificial intelligence, you can’t deny the fact that it has democratized creativity. Whether you have design experience or an art background, or neither, you now have tools you can use to bring your creative juices to life. Popular English club Manchester City and PUMA developed a platform to help fans express their fandom through original kit designs, and now they’ve actually let one lucky fan’s concept become the club’s official third kit.

Manchester City’s 2026/27 Third Kit is the first AI-generated fan design to be worn by a professional football club on the pitch and sold commercially. It was created using the PUMA AI Creator, a tool that turns written prompts into full kit designs in just a few seconds. Lifelong Manchester City fan and photographer Elliott Lacey’s creation was chosen from more than 180,000 designs submitted on the platform.

Designer: Elliott Lacey and PUMA

For those not familiar with football (soccer, to American audiences), a club’s third kit is just as important as its home and away kits, and it sometimes even outsells the two, provided it’s well designed, of course. Lacey used the platform to design his submission during his lunch break, and PUMA brought it to life with the brand’s signature quality. The project reflects a broader push by the sportswear brand to blend technology, football culture, and fan community in a way that hasn’t really been attempted before at this level of professional sports.

The design itself features a white base split by a central two-tone sash in sky blue and dark navy, finished with a gradient technique that shifts the pattern’s dimension depending on the light and viewing angle. Manchester City fans are used to seeing the club sporting an almost pure sky-blue kit, so this white base with blue accents, while still very much true to the club’s identity, feels like a refreshing twist.

What makes this launch even more compelling is the scale of fan involvement behind it. Over 180,000 designs were submitted through the PUMA AI Creator, generating 1.7 million platform ratings from supporters worldwide before the field was narrowed down to a final ten for a public vote. That kind of grassroots participation shows this wasn’t just a marketing gimmick, it was a genuine, global collaboration between a club and the people who love it most.

Manchester City’s marketing leadership framed the project as an extension of the deep bond between the club and its global fanbase, describing the initiative as a way of turning ordinary supporters into designers for a day, with AI as the bridge that made it possible. On the PUMA side, leadership described the collaboration as sitting squarely at the intersection of technology, football, and community, a rare combination that doesn’t come together often in professional sports branding.

For Lacey himself, the experience was described as surreal and deeply personal. Having grown up as a City supporter, he never expected that a design he put together on a lunch break would end up gracing the shirts of the players he idolized. It’s the kind of story that turns an everyday supporter into part of club history, and it’s exactly the sort of narrative that makes this kit special beyond its good looks.

For collectors, this kit represents something more than fresh apparel for the upcoming season. It’s a cultural milestone, the first tangible proof that AI-assisted design can move from novelty experiment to something worn by elite athletes and cherished by fans around the world. Owning one means owning a piece of a genuine “first” in sports history, not just another seasonal jersey.

Whether you’re a die-hard Cityzen, a design enthusiast curious about where AI creativity is headed, or simply someone who appreciates a good underdog story, this kit checks every box. It’s proof that passion, paired with the right tools, can turn an ordinary lunch break into a legacy moment. And as more clubs watch how enthusiastically fans embraced this process, don’t be surprised if Elliott Lacey’s story becomes the blueprint for how sports brands invite their communities into the creative process for years to come.

The post A Fan Actually Designed Man City’s Third Kit With Puma’s AI Platform first appeared on Yanko Design.

BAPE x adidas Just Dropped the World Cup Collab No One Expected

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World Cup fever is still very much here and while most brands scramble to slap national flags on whatever they can find, adidas Originals and BAPE® took a very different road. Their latest collaboration for FIFA World Cup 2026 doesn’t just dress you for the occasion. It makes a case for why football culture and street culture were never really separate to begin with, and it does so through some of the most deliberately designed pieces either brand has produced together.

The collection splits into two sets: Home and Away. That familiar football divide becomes the entire creative brief here, and both sides carry it out with real conviction. The Home Set draws from a green, red, and blue Trefoil ABC Camo palette inspired by the World Cup host nations, and looking at the jersey up close, it earns every bit of that boldness. The body runs ABC Camo in blue and green, the raglan sleeves come in red with white adidas Three Stripes, and the whole thing is anchored by a gold BAPE crest badge at the chest. It’s loud in exactly the right way, like something designed to be spotted from three rows back in a stadium. The Away Set takes a gray, gold, and pink Trefoil ABC Camo palette for a more tonal result. The grey camo runs across the entire body, broken up by gold Three Stripes at the shoulders and flashes of yellow and pink at the sides. It’s the quieter of the two, but quieter is relative when BAPE’s involved.

Designers: adidas x BAPE

Both jerseys share the same Teamgeist base, which brings a mid-2000s football silhouette into the picture. The curved panelling and construction feel genuinely archival, not in a nostalgic way, but in the way that certain shapes simply never stopped working. Tucked into the details are BAPE STA™ branding on the chest, the number 93 referencing the year the Japanese brand was founded, and a release-specific code “2W0G2M6” inscribed on the lower back. Those kinds of details matter. They’re the difference between a collab that’s worn and one that’s kept.

Then there are the shoes, and the shoes might be the real story. The EVO SL follows a deliberate mismatched design formula, with the Home colorway dressing the left shoe in pine green and the right in royal blue. BAPE’s ABC camo appears on the red shoelaces, the tongue, and sockliners, while a white Lightstrike Pro midsole sits below. The Away colorway takes a completely different approach. The right shoe runs in sky blue with BAPE’s Shooting Star on the lateral, the left goes pink with the Three Stripes taking the lead, and ABC camo hits the laces, collar, and liner on both shoes with gold accents running through the branding details. The bilingual touch is one of my favorite things about the Away pair specifically: “A Bathing Ape” appears across alternate feet in English and Japanese, which feels like a genuinely considered design decision rather than a detail added at the end.

The mismatched format is worth sitting with for a moment. Sneaker collaborations usually play it safe by keeping both shoes identical. Choosing to make each foot its own thing is a creative risk, and it pays off because it mirrors the home-away split of the collection itself. You’re not just wearing two colors, you’re wearing a concept.

The Home set is only available in North America and Latin America, while the Away set is available worldwide, excluding those regions. That regional exclusivity adds another layer to the storytelling, making geography part of the design language.

BAPE® and adidas have been at this since 2003, which means they’ve had more than twenty years to develop a shared creative vocabulary. You can feel that here. Neither brand is overexplaining itself or trying to dominate the other. The ABC Camo sits comfortably inside the Teamgeist template. The BAPE STA lives naturally on the EVO SL’s lateral. Two very distinct design languages, sharing space without either one losing its voice. At $200, the shoes aren’t a casual purchase, but as a design object tied to a specific cultural moment, they make a strong case for themselves.

The post BAPE x adidas Just Dropped the World Cup Collab No One Expected first appeared on Yanko Design.