A.S. Saint-Étienne Loire (Request)

A new design today, one I am pretty pleased with for being different but also true to what I like to see a football kit looking like. This kit came as a request from user OKT who also has a blog http://evolution-okt.blogspot.com/ some of the best kits around using a FM texture, very much worth a look if you're into your kit designs.

St. Étienne are the sleeping giant of French football, well OK, there are a few, following Lyon's tremendous run of Ligue 1 titles that it has kind of overshadowed previous acomplishments from other teams in the league. St. Étienne's teams over the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's managed to win a total of 10 Ligue 1 championships and 6 French cups, the most successful domestic French team and is the only one to be able to boast the 10 titles and wear a star above it's crest (although Marseille often does for their Champion's League victory in 1992). Although in recent years the only thing 'Les Vert' has to celebrate is a Ligue 2 victory, which shows just how hard they have fallen from the glory years.

My kit originally set out to honour the victories of previous seasons, where the team wore quite plain looking green shirts with the French tricolor playing a big part by featuring in wrap around collars and also on the shirt cuffs but as I tried this is just didn't anymore and look very dated and also quite weird to see blue, white and red mixed with a dark green so I changed that idea and made something which would feature the flag but not in an over bearing way, so I have just moved it to feature inside the collar and also around the top of the socks.

Now my shirt took on a more modern look, one which I always prefer to make and look at. Featuring the spiky shapes and parts which wrap around the body of the shirt. The collar has been inspired from both adidas and Nike designs, it's not to hard to see which when you think about it. I think it is different enough though to count as being original. Another kit design I have taken a bit of inspiration from albeit unintentionally is Reebok from their design for Liverpool many seasons ago, can't be sure on the exact season though. I say unintentionally because the inspiration actually came from the St. Étienne logo and the stripes there. The intention was to make the darker shade of green into white to mirror the stripes of the logo but in the end I opted out of that idea for a safer option.

For the socks I tried, yes I actually tried something for the socks this time! (sorry about the fragmented English, I thought it worked as a joke) For once I actually think they enhance the look of the rest of the kit wrapping around the back with A.S.S.E. printed there too, imitating the curves of the front of the shirt in the bottom spikes and also the back if you can make that out.


For the away I got a comment about the usage of green shorts taking the overall look of the kit down. Well my again my original intention was to create shorts which would fit in with the home kit to make it all green, but my idiocy made make the details black which would just look hideous mixed with the home shirt and socks. I do however think usage of black here may have been a good idea since their is a high level of green on the shirt to stop it looking boring overall.