FC Barcelona Kits 2012

The new FC Barcelona kits are available and as you can see there are a slew of options for the typical blaugrana player or the upworldly mobile cule who wants to be mocked on the way to the cinema.

First Kit:  The design has changed greatly under Nike. The colors are still identifiable blue and garnet but the colors bleed into each other under a skin-tight top. The effect almost looks like the old printing process from the early comic books where you saw the dots up close under a magnifying glass. The color is a bright marine red as is the large red trim on the sleeves. It's interesting, and Nike should be commended for introducing a more sleek and modern design to kits recently, and industry that is usually clunky and bereft of any interesting ideas, but this is just odd. There is something basic about the Barcelona stripes, something iconic even if not as stately as Real Madrid's all white kit, but chnging the dynamic of the stripes seems almost blasphemous, like putting hoop on a Juve kit. Just me. It looks fine enough, but just not my type really.

Second Kit: This is a modification of the second kit that Barca have been using over time, that eye-catching radioactive color that they used a few years ago, and the more bluish tinge they used as well, but this is rather interesting too. The top of the shirt is an orange blend and it blends into a more lemon yellow citrus using a similar process horizontally that the first kit used vertically. In fact it looks like someone splashed a foo-foo rum drink on a Real Madrid kit. Again, a very interesting selection and innovative I guess, but Barcelona doesn't strike me as the club for Nike to be running these sorts of experiments with.

It is as if someone, probably Phil Knight himself looked at Barcelona and is trying to shoehorn the experiments that his design division have been using at his hometown college, the University of Oregon  and specifically their athletic program, and bringing them to bear on European football. I am usually more progressive than this, more interested in new forms and sleek designs to that sort of outdated stodginess that runs through football kit design, but this is a little much for even me.

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars