The apron jersey trend

[senseimike]

Any of you guys know what the thinking was behind the jersey design feature of a few years ago where a bunch of teams looked like their jersey was an apron?

What was the rationale for such a striking (and weird IMO) design choice? And why did only some teams have it and not others?

Click to read more...

 

[FinnishCoyote]

better cooking

 

[Lt Dan]

So they can kick it up a notch. Bam!

 

[Ceremony]

Because Reebok designed them that way. Here are some blogposts I found after a quick search:

Remembering the Reebok Edge Rollout

The Rbk EDGE Uniform System (Photo by Mike Fuentes/Bloomberg via Getty Images) As I was going through YouTube, a clip came up from 2010 when the Flyers beat the Bruins after coming back from 0-3 do…

scottywazz.com

An Edgy Decade: The Evolution of Reebok Edge - Derek Woo

It’s been a decade since Reebok unveiled the NHL's Edge jerseys. Let’s take a look at the changes the system has undergone over the past 10 years.

read.derekw.co

 

[Sasha Orlov]

Artie Bucco tribute

 

[usahockey22flyers]

I might be alone but I really enjoyed the Reebok 2007-2008 -> jerseys. I think it was called Reebok Edge? Loved the Flyers jerseys

 

[Filthy Dangles]

How you gonna not provide a picture of what you're talking about....

 

[Golden_Jet]

Any of you guys know what the thinking was behind the jersey design feature of a few years ago where a bunch of teams looked like their jersey was an apron?

What was the rationale for such a striking (and weird IMO) design choice? And why did only some teams have it and not others?

Do you have an example or 2 with pic.

 

[Toby91ca]

Any of you guys know what the thinking was behind the jersey design feature of a few years ago where a bunch of teams looked like their jersey was an apron?

What was the rationale for such a striking (and weird IMO) design choice? And why did only some teams have it and not others?

I honestly have no idea what you are talking about....aprons?

 

[tarheelhockey]

I honestly have no idea what you are talking about....aprons?

He’s talking about the Reebok Edge jersey template that had seams along the sides of the torso, that a lot of teams highlighted as piping.

IMO, these designs were hot burning garbage that violated basic principles of what a hockey jersey looks like. I was hoping they would at least age well but they have not.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

Just wait until you hear what they’re doing to the frogs..

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

He’s talking about the Reebok Edge jersey template that had seams along the sides of the torso, that a lot of teams highlighted as piping.

IMO, these designs were hot burning garbage that violated basic principles of what a hockey jersey looks like. I was hoping they would at least age well but they have not.

Straight up horrible design.

 

[Rebels57]

These were horrendous. Didn't Calgary keep their Edge design like 5 years longer than everyone else too?

 

[Chuck Norris Trophy]

Can we please not talk about these times?

 

[Weztex]

Ugliest era of jerseys ever. Reebok tried to outdo things and leave their mark by completely pissing on the traditional aesthetic of the game.

Now that the Ducks have moved on, the Caps are the only team that still have some kind of vertical design going on. Couple that with a wordmark instead of an actual logo and to me they have the worst jersey in the league. Unfortunately , career will always keep those in the collective memory.

 

[Figgy44]

He’s talking about the Reebok Edge jersey template that had seams along the sides of the torso, that a lot of teams highlighted as piping.

IMO, these designs were hot burning garbage that violated basic principles of what a hockey jersey looks like. I was hoping they would at least age well but they have not.

Wait.. that design wasn't to try and create an illusion of a slimmer bodied player? They always looked a little weird to me, but I assumed it was some ridiculously poor attempt as a slim fit illusion because the team colors on the arms were too wide. Hockey jerseys are sweaters. Enter too far into the slim fit range and you're getting into cardigans or something. It looks weird.

I legit thought for a time that those were slim fit designs inspired by a tuxedo t-shirt or something.

These were horrendous. Didn't Calgary keep their Edge design like 5 years longer than everyone else too?

Maybe? But I think that might be due to the fact that Calgary's design didn't have as many noticeable lines on the front of the torso of the jersey. I think those lines were tucked to the side a bit more. The fact we had jersey laces for way too damn long annoyed me though.

 

[Golden_Jet]

The piping was bad, at least the teams that rocked them.

 

[IceManCat]

Reebok Edge had awful designs the first few years however the quality of the jersey was fantastic.

 

[IceManCat]

Pajama jersey is referring to the jerseys without a stripe on the bottom hem. This gave them a "floating" look. I believe the New Jersey Devils are the only and last team to still have this styling.

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDo]

Damn, never noticed they looked like aprons. Now can’t force myself to not see aprons. Thanks OP.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Wait.. that design wasn't to try and create an illusion of a slimmer bodied player? They always looked a little weird to me, but I assumed it was some ridiculously poor attempt as a slim fit illusion because the team colors on the arms were too wide. Hockey jerseys are sweaters. Enter too far into the slim fit range and you're getting into cardigans or something. It looks weird.

I legit thought for a time that those were slim fit designs inspired by a tuxedo t-shirt or something.

This is pulling from old memory so I may have some details wrong, but:

I believe the design actually started with the athletic purpose of the jersey, and the determination that a traditional hockey sweater’s seams weren’t ideal for athletic movement. If you look at where the seams go in the Edge template, they’re in ergonomic places to accommodate the twisting and stretching that happens during a hockey game.

That template in and of itself created issues, because traditional hockey jerseys usually have straight lines over the shoulders (either that, or no lines at all). So for example, St Louis relied heavily on the visual effect of straight lines running from collar to shoulder, and this was no longer practical from a production standpoint:

So that production problem got passed along to the design teams for a solution, which is where things really went off the rails. Having been given license to follow the new template, they set about the creation of a new visual profile for the NHL. Of course this was basically a license to force new jersey sales leaguewide, so it’s not like the league was pushing back on them.

So from the jersey above, you get the Edge-ified Blues:

Of course, they made up some marketing BS about this being a tribute to the Arch, but it was a straightforward matter of needing the shoulder stripes to follow the curving seams near the collar.

BUT, it got even dumber. Because again — production problem without a good design solution. Look at Oshie’s jersey above, if he gains the captaincy where do you put a letter?

Well…

So from what started as a simple matter of trying to make the jerseys less bulky and restrictive, we ended up in the theater of the absurd from a design standpoint. Nobody in their right mind would deliberately set out to create the visual mess you see in that last picture, but the train had left the station from an engineering standpoint.

Some teams had it a lot worse than others. Florida went from this:

To this:

And Calgary went from this:

To this:

And maybe the worst of all, poor Colorado going from this:

To this:

So in short, they came up with a solution for something that wasn’t really a problem… painted themselves into a corner where form and function could no longer co-exist… and ended up torching the visual identity of the league for a while.

 

[cptjeff]

Ugliest era of jerseys ever. Reebok tried to outdo things and leave their mark by completely pissing on the traditional aesthetic of the game.

Now that the Ducks have moved on, the Caps are the only team that still have some kind of vertical design going on. Couple that with a wordmark instead of an actual logo and to me they have the worst jersey in the league. Unfortunately , career will always keep those in the collective memory.

I actually think that Caps design was one of the few (hell, only) jerseys where that approach worked. And the wordmark is a variation on their original logo, and it's not like wordmarks have ever been foreign to hockey jerseys. The sleeve elements are coherent, there's still a stripe at the bottom to define the jersey, I've always liked it. Though the Adidas template really hurt it.

If that's the worst jersey in the league right now (though to me, that's the Devils- they took a perfectly proportioned jersey and ruined it), that means the league is in a really good place visually right now.

 

[NYR94]

better cooking

Jersey designers were like "let him cook"

 

[Matty Sundin]

Didn’t mind the piping for the Colorado jerseys. Those Oilers piping jersey were just so bad.

 

[Figgy44]

I wonder why the other teams jersey seams are vertical but Calgary's seams are all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ in comparison.