Students mix fashion and sustainability with Huddersfield Town shirt project
Fashion students from the University of Huddersfield have worked with Huddersfield Town shirts for a new fashion and sustainability project.
Fashion students from the University of Huddersfield have teamed up with Huddersfield Town to enhance and customise some of the club’s recent football shirts with eye-catching new designs.
The club contacted fashion lecturers Kathryn Brennand and Debbie Allsop and donated dozens of Umbro shirts and training kits, kept as spares for the first team, dating back over the last few seasons.
First and second year fashion students have got to grips with the football shirts and the club’s history, devising some innovative enhancements, such as a silhouette of the familiar sight of Castle Hill that overlooks the town.
Home and away kits get a new life
Other designs see the famous blue-and-white striped home shirt merged with a yellow away top, and a poem about the club on the back. The project also gets the students working with different fabrics, while also thinking about a sustainable approach in an industry that is reducing its carbon footprint.
“We were very pleasantly surprised when Huddersfield Town approached us, and the concept chimes with so many things we’d want our students to be involved with,” says Kathryn Brennand, course leader in Fashion Design.
The club donated dozens of kits dating back to 2018.
Students worked with the kits over several days.
Kits were pulled apart or enhanced.
The familiar sights of Castle Hill and Emley Moor were added to some of the away kits
“They are working to a commission, like they will do when working in the industry, and they are working with a material that they may not normally choose to work with. They have learned that football shirt designs are many and varied, and that the background to the shirt as a representation of the club is important as well.
“And it’s vital that students think with sustainability in mind. Football shirts can be seen as a disposable item, given how often that clubs come up with new designs, but this project is demonstrating that they can have an extended life. The students are also learning about the club, and it’s important that their work has some context to it.”
More university-club collaborations in the pipeline
The club will also sponsor the University’s student fashion show in July, and Huddersfield Town Director of Global Brand, Domenic Notarfrancesco, added,
“Seeing the Club and University collaborate within Huddersfield is extremely rewarding, and we couldn’t have been happier to sponsor this event. A fantastic place to learn, it’s important to us to work with likeminded institutions locally to show what is available and possible right on our doorstep.
“One of the most recognisable parts of the Huddersfield Town brand is our kit, home or away, with so many iconic iterations over time. To see how the fashion students have re-imagined that, showed their creativity and created pieces that are new and fresh has been a real joy.
“Expanding the horizons of what Huddersfield Town is, who we are and what it means to be a Terrier is of the utmost importance to us. I look forward to taking us into spaces that you wouldn’t usually associate with football, and teaching more people about the Club - and it’s a hope that the University of Huddersfield continues to play a role within that.”