On 7 May 2006 Arsenal played their last match at Highbury in a shirt the colour of dried blood. Redcurrant, gold lettering, and the words HIGHBURY 1913 - 2006 printed under the number. It was the colour the club had worn in their first season at the ground, brought back for their last, and it is still the shirt Arsenal supporters name first when you ask them which one they want.
That is the pattern in Arsenal kit history. The home shirt has barely changed in ninety years, so the club's identity ends up carried by the exceptions: one commemorative colour, a handful of away shirts, and a few sleeve details that tell you exactly which season you are looking at. Here is how it all fits together, from the adidas years through the Nike decades to now.
Arsenal kit history in short
Kit manufacturers and shirt sponsors, in order:
- Umbro, until 1986
- adidas, 1986 to 1994
- Nike, 1994 to 2014
- Puma, 2014 to 2019
- adidas, 2019 onwards
- JVC, 1981 to 1999
- Sega Dreamcast, 1999 to 2002
- O2, 2002 to 2006
- Emirates, 2006 onwards
Red with white sleeves, and where it came from
Arsenal did not start in red and white. The first kit, in 1886, came from Nottingham Forest after two of the club's founders wrote asking for help, and it was redcurrant: a dark, wine-coloured red worn with white shorts.
The look that everybody recognises arrived in 1933, when Herbert Chapman added white sleeves and switched the body to a brighter pillar box red. It has survived nearly everything since. The club tried all-red shirts in 1966-67, supporters disliked them, and the white sleeves were back the following season. Almost a century later the sleeves are still the first thing you check when you are dating an Arsenal shirt.
The adidas years, 1986 to 1994
adidas took over the kit in 1986 and produced the shirt that anchors the whole era: the 1988-90 home, red body, white sleeves, three stripes over the shoulders and JVC across the chest in block white letters. Look closely at the body and there is a jacquard cannon repeated through the weave, which is the sort of detail modern reissues almost never get right.
This is the shirt of the 1988-89 title, decided at Anfield on the last night of the season when Michael Thomas scored in stoppage time to take the championship on goals scored. An original 1988-90 Arsenal home shirt is one of the few English kits from that decade that people search for by year rather than by player.
adidas also gave Arsenal their most argued-about shirt. The 1991-93 away, yellow with a jagged black and navy pattern across the front, has been called the bruised banana for so long that most people have forgotten it was ever meant as a compliment. It finishes near the top of worst-kit polls and near the top of want lists at the same time, which is usually the sign of a design that got something right.
Nike arrives, 1994
Nike took the contract in 1994 and immediately moved Arsenal away from the yellow-and-blue habit. The 1995-96 away is the clearest example: a two-tone blue shirt split diagonally with a lightning bolt down the middle, red trim, JVC still on the chest. It looks like nothing else Arsenal have worn before or since.
It also happens to be Dennis Bergkamp's first season in England. He signed in the summer of 1995 and changed how the team attacked, which is why the 1995-96 away shirt with Bergkamp's number ten carries more weight than an ordinary change kit from the same period. The rest of the Bergkamp shirts run from there through to 2006, which is an unusually long run for one player on one club's shirts.
The 1996-98 home shirt followed, then the 1998-99 season in which Arsène Wenger's side had just done the league and cup double. JVC's run as sponsor ended in 1999 after eighteen years, and Sega Dreamcast took over for three seasons.
Gold, O2 and the Invincibles
Nike started using metallic gold on the away kits around 2000, and the colour stuck. O2 replaced Sega in 2002, which is the sponsor on the shirts from the best team the club has had.
The 2002-04 home shirt is the Invincibles shirt: 38 league games, no defeats, Henry with the fourteen on his back. Both the home and the gold 2003-04 away belong to that run. A 2002-04 Arsenal home shirt with Henry 14 is probably the single most requested Arsenal print we handle, and the wider set of Thierry Henry shirts spans Arsenal, Juventus and France.
Redcurrant, 2005-06: the goodbye to Highbury
For the final season at Highbury, Nike went back to 1913. The home shirt was redcurrant with gold trim and gold lettering, a direct reference to the colours Arsenal wore when the ground opened. On the back, below the number, was the line HIGHBURY 1913 - 2006.
Commemorative kits usually feel like marketing. This one did not, partly because the colour was genuinely unfamiliar and partly because it was the last thing Henry wore at the ground before he scored a hat-trick against Wigan on the final afternoon. The redcurrant Highbury shirt with Henry 14 now sits in a category of its own among Arsenal kits.
The Emirates away shirts, 2008 to 2012
Emirates became the shirt sponsor with the move to the new stadium in 2006, and the away kits of the following years are the ones people still look up by season. Two in particular.
The 2008-09 away is gold with navy raglan sleeves and a thin red line running along the shoulder seam, Fly Emirates in navy across the chest, and the club motto printed inside the collar. It is a cleaner shirt than most of what Nike were doing in the Premier League at the time.
The 2010-11 away went the other way, back to yellow, with fine vertical pinstripes and dark redcurrant trim on the collar and cuffs. It is the same nod to 1913 that the Highbury shirt made, done quietly on a change kit.
If you are hunting by season rather than by player, the 2008-09 Arsenal away shirt and the 2010-11 away shirt are the two that come up most often.
Puma, then adidas again
Puma took the contract in 2014 and held it until 2019. It was a five-year spell that produced some strong shirts and no era-defining one, which is roughly how most supporters remember it.
adidas returned in 2019, thirty-three years after their first Arsenal deal began. Since the 2021-22 season the cannon-only crest has come back on away kits, its first appearance since 1991, and by 2024-25 it was being used across all three kits. For a club whose home shirt cannot really change, the crest has become the place where the changes happen.
Which Arsenal shirts collectors actually chase
From what passes through our hands, the demand does not follow trophies as closely as you would expect.
- The redcurrant is the outlier. It is the only Arsenal shirt in living memory that is not red or yellow, and scarcity plus a one-season run makes it the hardest of the modern kits to find in good condition.
- Away shirts outperform home shirts here. Arsenal's home shirt looks similar across decades, so a change kit dates itself instantly. That is why the 1991-93, 1995-96, 2008-09 and 2010-11 away shirts move faster than home shirts from the same seasons.
- Sponsor beats season for a lot of buyers. JVC reads as the pre-Wenger and early Wenger club, O2 reads as the Invincibles, Emirates reads as the new stadium. People often decide on the chest before they decide on the year.
- Prints change the value more than the shirt does. Henry 14 and Bergkamp 10 carry a premium on almost any season. A blank shirt from the same run is a different item at a different price.
If you like this way of reading kits, our piece on the most iconic football shirts you can own applies the same test across other clubs and countries.
Frequently asked questions
Why do Arsenal wear red with white sleeves?
Herbert Chapman introduced the white sleeves in 1933, alongside a brighter pillar box red, replacing the plain darker red the club had worn until then. Apart from the all-red experiment of 1966-67, it has been the home look ever since.
What was the Arsenal redcurrant shirt?
The 2005-06 home shirt, worn in the final season at Highbury. Nike used redcurrant with gold trim as a reference to the colours Arsenal wore when the ground opened in 1913, and the back of the shirt carried the line HIGHBURY 1913 - 2006 below the number.
Who has made Arsenal's kits?
Umbro until 1986, adidas from 1986 to 1994, Nike from 1994 to 2014, Puma from 2014 to 2019, and adidas again from 2019.
What is the Arsenal bruised banana shirt?
The 1991-93 adidas away shirt: yellow with a jagged black and navy pattern across the chest. It is one of the most divisive kits in English football and one of the most collected.
Why are Arsenal's away shirts usually yellow?
The yellow and blue change kit dates from 1968 and was worn through the 1971 FA Cup final and three finals at the end of the seventies, which fixed it in supporters' memory. Arsenal have tried green, navy, blue and gold since, but yellow keeps coming back.
How can you tell which season an Arsenal shirt is from?
Start with the sponsor, which narrows it to a block of years, then the manufacturer's logo style, then the crest. The cannon-only crest, for instance, means either pre-1991 or 2021 onwards, which on its own rules out three decades.