- Up-and-coming Melbourne brand Front Office has teamed up with legendary football apparel maker Umbro for a collaboration that riffs on the best archival designs of the 80s and 90s.
- The Front Office x Umbro collaboration arrives as a 12-piece capsule including football shirts, jackets, track pants, and insulated vests.
- The collection is currently available online and from Front Office’s Fitzroy store. Prices range from $79 to $499.
Vintage football shirts have become a fashion staple in recent years, from the Dua Lipa-designed PUMA Palermo to Balenciaga’s Spring ’23 collection with adidas. Now, Aussie label Front Office has revealed its collaboration with legendary football apparel maker Umbro, celebrating a few very special archival designs with a 21st century twist.
The 12-piece collection is a deep dive into Umbro’s history, resurrecting both iconic designs and hidden gems that never even made it onto the proverbial pitch.
Hero pieces in the capsule include a pair of football shirts, available in reversed colourways with Umbro’s classic fold-down collar – evoking Manchester United kit circa 1998, during the club’s treble-winning season.
RELATED: The 20 Best Menswear Stores In Melbourne
There’s a manager’s coat fit for pacing the sidelines (or enduring the worst days of an Australian winter), pleated trackpants, and an insulated vest that’s equal parts ‘90s touchline-chic and Y2K. Another standout for us from this new collection are the vests: borne out of an unfinished Montreal Impact windbreaker design from 1990.
Front Office’s Ken Sakata brought his now-internet-famous attention to detail and meticulous research processes to the design table. For Front Office x Umbro, Sakata also drew inspiration from the consumer electronics aesthetic that dominated shirt sponsorships at the time – with clean, industrial tones of white, grey, and orange that once adorned the torsos of elite European strikers.
All in all? This is a collab that strikes the rare sweet spot: retro enough to tug at the heartstrings, but contemporary enough that it never looks costume-y. If you grew up with Umbro – or just wish you did – we’d recommend copping a few styles before they sell out.
