Inter Milan have unveiled the very first jersey to feature their new club crest, and the Serie A giants have really thrown everything at the design in order to draw attention to their rebrand.
The so-called “Special Jersey” forms part of the I M Collection, a capsule of limited-edition apparel from Nike that the 18-time Italian champions hope will help them establish their new identity.
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Inspired by Italian futurist artist Giorgio Muggiani, one of Inter’s founding fathers who designed the original club badge, the jersey is sprayed with geometric patterns and shapes. The famous Nerazzurri stripes are included but only as part of a small rectanglular patch on the chest. The rest of the shirt is spattered with a random assortment of hoops, bars, prints and blocks.
👕 | JERSEY
The first jersey featuring our new logo gives shape to our story. Be inspired by our city.
Are you ready? #IMInter ⚫️🔵 pic.twitter.com/S3RxmHyp8v
— Inter (@Inter_en) April 7, 2021
Muggiani hand-painted the first Inter badge when the club was formed in 1908 — the familiar blue, black and gold circular shield with the letters “FCIM” (Football Club Internazionale Milano), which the Milan side have worn for the majority of their 113-year existence.
However, it will be formally replaced at the start of the 2021-22 season, with the new Inter badge representing a streamlined variation of Muggiani’s original — the letters “FC” dropped from the roundel design to allow the “IM” to feature more prominently.
It’s unlikely the Special Jersey will ever be worn on the pitch by Romelu Lukaku and Co., given the shirt is being officially referred to as a “limited-edition fourth shirt” in the launch material.
The Special Jersey was created by graphic designers Dee Mo and Moab Villain. Tasked with reinventing the classic Inter look, the pair used Muggiani’s design as inspiration as they set about creating original artwork.
“Neither of us was born in Milan, yet we represent, each in our own way, the current creative ferment of this city,” they told the club’s official website. “The realization of this project has triggered an unprecedented, intergenerational conversation, in which we verified the existence of many visual references in common — revisiting and reinventing some of the cornerstones of the history of Milanese design.”
In a purely stylistic sense, the Special Jersey doesn’t actually bear much resemblance to Muggiani’s work at all, with most of his portfolio consisting of elegant commercial and advertisement pieces produced for Italian companies and brands in the 1920s and 1930s. Still, we guess producing a garish bespoke jersey that successfully “recalls a vocation for inclusion” to reflect Milan’s reputation as “the most international city in Italy” is close enough.
The I M Collection also includes another, more (by comparison) restrained jersey, as well as a white jacket and matching track pants.
Inter have been very protective of their identity in recent years, even becoming embroiled in a trademark dispute with David Beckham’s MLS franchise Inter Miami.
In 2014, the Italian club filed a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for the commercial use of the word “Inter” only to take umbrage at MLS doing likewise upon the formation of Inter Miami in 2018.
As of last month, the two clubs were still in the process of conducting settlement talks with a swift resolution sought on either side of the divide.
But, if the Italian club are going to have their players run out in kits with similarly bold designs, then we don’t think there’s much chance of them being mistaken for their American namesake.