If you had flora and fauna battling it out with aliens and peculiar beings on your football kit bingo card, you’re lying.
Welcome back to the New Mexico multiverse.
New Mexico United and the wildly creative minds at Meow Wolf have continued their series of specialty shirts with something that doesn’t just push the boundaries of football shirt design. It pretty much ignores them.
The concept is bloom and decay.
Where there’s death, there’s life. Where waste spreads, nature grows.
Meow Wolf artist Nathan Sparks has covered both shirts in a mad array of illustrations, characters, quirks and little Easter eggs, building an entire world across the fabric rather than simply creating a repeating pattern.
Even the usual manufacturer branding isn’t safe.
Their little rascal rat-pal Plotzo jumps into that position instead, immediately telling you that normal football shirt rules aren’t particularly important here.
The black outfield shirt represents decay.
New Mexico’s iconic yellow provides the detailing, while the artwork dives into rot, decomposition and a certain urban grubbiness. There’s an enormous amount happening, and that’s very much the point.
Then comes the goalkeeper shirt.
The same idea suddenly feels completely different through an explosion of colour. Plants become vibrant, the characters feel more playful and everything that appeared to be dying on the darker shirt suddenly feels alive.
Two sides of the same wonderfully bonkers concept.
Football shirts this busy aren’t going to be for everyone. Some people want stripes, clean colours and a traditional crest. Others want their shirts to look like an illustrator has been given complete freedom and told not to stop until every inch is covered.
We’re very much enjoying the madness.
New Mexico United have never been afraid of pushing things a little further, but it raises a great question.
Who does wild, messy and completely crazy football shirts better than anyone else?
And can a football shirt ever have too much going on?
Images; @newmexicoutd @meowwolf @nathansparksdesign
#newmexico #meowwolf #illustration #bloom #decay #footballkits #thekitsman
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