The Man Utd fan who designed their record-selling kit: ‘Football was a religion, but so was Adidas’

Inigo Turner is Adidas’ design director and creative lead.

That means he is the man who designed the current Manchester United strip; one which, despite the team’s poor league position and managerial upheaval, is selling in record numbers.

He tells The Athletic about his favourite United shirts over the years, what inspired this season’s kit, and the long process of agreeing each one with the club.

What’s your back story, Inigo?

I’m from a big family in Withington, Manchester, one of eight kids. Six boys, two girls. Our parents are not into football in the slightest. Dad is a retired clergyman. All my brothers are sisters are Reds (United fans). Most are older (than me) so I didn’t have a choice who I supported.

I remember my brothers’ hand-me-down United shirts — particularly the 1983 home shirt. It was a shiny red material which had this sheen and lustre to it, with the three white stripes on the shoulders. I was mesmerised by the knit on the collar, with the red and black tipping. The crest had a devil on it, so as a kid, what’s not to like about that? Football was like a religion in Manchester, but so was Adidas.

I was quite creative — my family are — and I was good at drawing. I’d draw kits from an early age. They either appeal to you or they don’t. I still have some of the sketches somewhere at my parents’ house. They’re not very good but I’d draw my heroes, like Mark Hughes, in the kit. I was hooked.

Did you go to games?

When I was old enough. My dad didn’t take me, and my brothers were like, ‘You’re not coming with us, you’re too small’. First game was Liverpool at Old Trafford, at the back of the Stretford End in the old wooden seats. February 1991, 1-1. I was blown away by it and it was the first time I’d experienced an atmosphere on that scale. There were 46,000 there, many stood on terracing.

I bought my first shirt that season too. It was the season of the snowflake away shirt and that was my favourite — and remains my all-time favourite shirt. It was the first one with a graphic on it, they were shadow graphics knitted into the material before that. But… I bought the home one. My logic was that I’d go for the one the team wore the most.

Did you ever think you’d become a kit designer?

Never. I had no clue that they were designed by people. I felt that they just landed from a higher place because they were magical things. They were rich in detail and great for the young mind. I first saw shirts in Shoot! magazine. I was mesmerised by it, hooked by the detailing, materials and big logos. They have an association to them that you belong to a group, that you’re like-minded.

I went to study art at Northumbria University in Newcastle. I had to learn Illustrator and Photoshop and about garment design. A chance conversation with a friend who worked for Adidas led to him saying, ‘You should put a portfolio together and send it to us’. I did and went to do an internship in Germany. I took a big bag with my stuff for six months, thinking I’d always be coming back. That was 20 years ago.

I worked in the Originals lifestyle part of the business, and got talking to a guy in the football part who gave me my first job in football. I started as a temp and worked my way up. I’ve worked across pretty much all the portfolio; numerous World Cups. I’ve worked on Real Madrid and Bayern, and then we signed United from 2015.

Tell us about your favourite shirts

The snowflake United shirt (away, 1990-92) reflected what was happening in Manchester at the time, with the music scene and the youth culture. My brothers were all into it, going to Spike Island to see The Stone Roses or the Hacienda club. That’s my favourite historically, but from the recent ones, because I’ve been involved, I’m more critical. I look back and think, ‘I could have done that better’. I’m always looking forward to the next one being better, but I’m happy with this season’s shirts.

How do you decide on the designs?

We’ll start two years before the release — you can build a Formula 1 car quicker than you can build a football kit. It’s a global product which we ship, and to ship so many you need a lot of time. We explore a lot and do a great deal of research. A small team of us travel to Manchester, travel around and go to games. We go to the club museum and look at things of cultural interest which we could bring into the wider United world. We try and see things that you wouldn’t normally see walking around Manchester.

In 2015, we walked around Manchester and saw all the bees. I’d not noticed it before, and then when you look out for them they’re everywhere in buildings — the industry of bees. That resulted in the honeycomb kit.

Then we go back to Germany, where we’re based, and create a brief and then go back to Manchester and present the designs to United in 3D design. The way we present the kit has progressed a lot in my time and we now build a high-res rendering of the kit, which we present with the back story. They’ll see things we didn’t see, and vice versa.

We’ll find an agreement and the next stage is to create samples of the product. There are more meetings. United might say, ‘That’s not quite what we expected it to look like’. So there might be more changes before we go into the production phase. It’s a long process and manufacturing those kits is a massive process, making hundreds of thousands of shirts.

What’s the story behind the current home kit?

In our research, we found out that floodlit games became a thing in the 1950s. Floodlights were installed at The Cliff (United’s training ground at that time) in 1951 and players had complained about being unable to see each other clearly in the dark.

This is where Matt Busby was also a pioneer. The team went on a tour to the U.S. in the summer of 1952 and, in playing games under floodlights, saw shiny, reflective shirts on that tour worn by opponents. They were made from a rayon fabric — a synthetic mix. They saw materials which could carry a bolder colour too – a brighter red. Busby liked them and ordered some.

United brought shirts back to Manchester, tested these shirts and wore them under floodlights. There was a youth cup match at Nantwich in November 1952 and players like Duncan Edwards, David Pegg and Albert Scanlon wore the shirts. It was all about improving the visibility of the players on the pitch under lights which weren’t as bright as now, about looking for a competitive advantage using technology. Even then, the philosophy of the club was to innovate.

United used the reflective material when they played away under lights, since Old Trafford didn’t have lights until 1957. Then, a bespoke all-red ‘floodlight kit’ was created for the 1957 European Cup semi-final (against Real Madrid), with a silver stripe on the shorts. It was tested in the first game at Old Trafford under lights, against Bolton Wanderers in the March.

Technology has changed massively and continues to change, but now you’re not allowed reflective shirts — that’s a UEFA (European football’s governing body) regulation, and there are 70 pages of regulations from FIFA (the global game’s ruling body) and UEFA — but we wanted to do something in the modern way. There’s a fluorescent panel which wraps around the kit, a brighter red which contrasts with the rest of the shirt to make it more visible. The rest of the shirt is ‘Man United red’, which we use every season — it’s like a blood red nobody else has.

What other considerations are there?

The players and the performance element are the first thing in our thoughts. We’ll test it out ourselves too — I still play, and we also have a laboratory, it’s like a James Bond laboratory, in the underground part of the Adidas building, which is incredible. There’s a machine where you put a boot on it and it kicks a ball 1,000 times, so we can see where the crease points are, or if we want to perfect the swerve on the ball.

We can do exhaustive tests on the kits — temperature tests, for example. The performance on these kits is the best ever. We’ll have constant meetings with United and discuss any ideas that they want to talk about and we’ll do the same from our side. From our perspective, we want to have an iconic look on our kits.

How does it feel to see the team walk out in a shirt you helped design?

Had you told the 10-year-old me that such a thing would happen, it would have blown my mind.

(Top photo courtesy of Adidas/Inigo Turner)

Andy Mitten is a journalist and author. He founded the best-selling United We Stand fanzine as a 15-year-old. A journalism graduate, he’s interviewed over 500 famous footballers past and present. His work has taken him to over 100 countries, writing about football from Israel to Iran, Brazil to Barbados. Born and bred in Manchester, he divides his time between his city of birth and Barcelona, Spain. Follow Andy on Twitter @andymitten