Welcome to this website’s off-season sports sartorial content. We are counting down the world’s top 50 most iconic sports uniforms. Only current uniforms apply, we are not including one-off or alternate uniforms. Let’s stick to the basics.

#8

Barcelona Soccer

This will probably be the highest ranked team where people don’t feel the visual appeal matches the true iconic nature of the uniforms. I would tend to agree and will explain more below.

Unlike their Spanish rivals Real Madrid whose use of white at home has made a more conservative kit, Barcelona has experimented a little bit more, especially in modern times.

However, their logo hasn’t changed much. An extremely Spanish football looking crest with laurels, a bat, and crown was used in the club’s earliest days but in 1910 the modern crest took shape: A gold shield, St. George’s cross on the upper left, the Catalan flag upper right, and what would become the club’s signature colored blue and garnet stripes behind a football.

The famous striped blue and garnet vertical striped kit also first came in 1910.

Through the 1970’s, the home jersey was pretty much the same. Sometimes the stripes were thicker or thinner, sometimes the badge wasn’t present across the chest, but the template remained steady. In the 1980’s some subtle trim details were added by manufacturer Meyba and then by the 1990’s new kit outfitter Kappa was adding slashes of white trim on the shoulders.

The 1999-2000 kit was one that really broke the mold: A jersey broken up into two garnet and blue panels with a dark blue collar and shoulders to celebrate the club’s 100th anniversary. That two-paneled look (covering the entire jersey this time) returned for 2008-09.

For 2012-13, the most ambitious change came with a dark blue jersey fading into garnet in the middle of the kit. Three seasons later for 2015, the club did the unthinkable…horizontal striping. In 2019-20, they went to a checkerboard pattern in an even more audacious decision. A few seasons ago, there were vertical stripes but the St. George’s cross filled up the right upper chest area. Two years ago, Barcelona used dark blue in the vertical striping pattern for a sharp look.

This past year, Barca returned to a very traditional look as seen above, including all white sponsorships. For the upcoming 2024-25 season they will be moving back to the dual panel jersey with red on the right chest and blue on the left side, complete with golden Spotify sponsorship.