All Blacks to sport new jersey at World Cup | Sunday Observer

All Blacks to sport new jersey at World Cup

7 July, 2019

New Zealand’s All Blacks have teamed up with fashion’s “poet of black” Yohji Yamamoto to create their team jersey for this year’s Rugby World Cup in Japan. The defending champions, who hope to win a third-straight title in Yokohama in November, unveiled the Yamamoto-designed shirts on Monday, featuring a fusion of New Zealand and Japanese influences. “We wanted to create a jersey that brought together the Japanese and Maori cultures. The design bears hand-drawn koru and fern motifs in a celebration of Maori culture,” said Yamamoto. The New Zealand team’s famous all-black strip has remained largely unchanged for decades.

There is little room for fashionable flourishes on the traditional All Blacks match jersey, with Yamamoto attaching a small black collar and incorporating the Maori designs into the fabric. However, he was able to be a little more playful with the training kit, adding the Japanese “fuku neko” (lucky cat) design onto the blue jersey’s back.

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