Red body, white sleeves. It is the most copied shirt template in world football and the most recognisable silhouette in the English game, and it exists because a manager in 1933 wanted his players to be able to find each other more quickly. The Arsenal shirt has been redrawn in every decade since, has carried some of the most famous sponsors in the sport, and was worn in May 2026 to end the longest wait in the club’s modern history. This is its story, from a munitions factory in Woolwich to a title celebration in north London.
Woolwich and the borrowed red
Arsenal began in 1886 as Dial Square, a works team at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, and the first kit was dark red because several of the founders had played for Nottingham Forest and Forest donated a set of shirts. The club wore plain red, in various shades, for its first fifty years, through the move north to Highbury in 1913 and the arrival of Herbert Chapman in 1925.
1933: Chapman’s white sleeves
Chapman changed the shirt in 1933, keeping the red body and adding white sleeves. The story usually told is that he saw a supporter wearing a red sleeveless jumper over a white shirt and liked the contrast; the practical reason was that white sleeves made his players easier to pick out in a crowded penalty area. He also lightened the red. The design was worn for the titles of the 1930s, when Arsenal won the league five times in eight seasons, and it has been the home shirt in every season since except one.
1971: the Double in plain red and white
The 1970/71 side of Frank McLintock, Charlie George and Bob Wilson won the league at White Hart Lane and the FA Cup at Wembley five days later, becoming only the second club of the century to do the Double. The shirt had no manufacturer logo, no sponsor and a round neck, and it is the design most retro ranges reproduce. Umbro made the kits through the 1970s, and JVC arrived as the first sponsor in 1981, staying for eighteen years and appearing on the shirts of George Graham’s title winners of 1989, when Michael Thomas scored at Anfield, and 1991.
adidas, the bruised banana and Nike
adidas produced the kits from 1986 to 1994 and gave Arsenal two of their most famous designs, the home shirt of the 1989 title and the yellow and navy away shirt of 1991 to 1993 that supporters christened the “bruised banana”. Nike took over in 1994 and stayed twenty years, covering the entire Arsène Wenger era, the Dreamcast and O2 sponsorships, and the Invincibles season of 2003/04, when Arsenal went the whole league campaign unbeaten in a plain red shirt with white sleeves and the O2 logo. The final season at Highbury, 2005/06, was played in a one-off redcurrant shirt, a nod to the club’s original colours, before the move to the Emirates.
Emirates, Puma and the years of waiting
Emirates has been on the front since 2006, the longest current sponsorship in the Premier League. Puma made the kits from 2014 to 2019 and adidas returned in 2019, bringing back the three stripes on the sleeves and a run of designs that drew heavily on the 1990s. Through all of it Arsenal won FA Cups, four between 2014 and 2020, but no league title, finishing second to Manchester City in 2023 and 2024 and to Liverpool in 2025. The shirt became, for a while, the symbol of a club that was always nearly there.
2025/26: the shirt that ended the wait
That changed on 19 May 2026. Manchester City drew 1-1 at Bournemouth and Arsenal were confirmed as Premier League champions for the first time in 22 years, a day after Kai Havertz’s goal had beaten Burnley to open a five-point gap. It was the club’s fourteenth English league title and the first since the Invincibles. Mikel Arteta’s team had led for most of the season, lost the League Cup final to City in March, and eleven days after the title reached the Champions League final in Budapest, where they drew 1-1 with Paris Saint-Germain and lost on penalties. The adidas home shirt of that season, red and white with the Emirates logo, will be reissued for decades.
2026/27: the champions’ kit
The kits for the title defence, again by adidas, have been rated by most reviewers as the best set in the division, three designs that lean on the club’s heritage without copying it. The home shirt keeps the white sleeves, the champions wear the gold Premier League sleeve patch for the first time since 2004, and the adult replica is priced at £85, in line with the other top clubs. The season opened against promoted Coventry City, and the Champions League campaign that follows is the first the club has entered as English champions since 2004.
The away kits, from the banana to the reissues
Arsenal’s change kits have a history of their own. The bruised banana was hated on release and adored within a decade; adidas reissued it as the third kit in 2019 and it sold out. The navy away shirts of the late 1990s, the yellow kits of the Invincibles era and the 2005 shirt worn in the FA Cup final win over Manchester United all have their followers. The current away and third designs lean on the same 1990s references, with the adidas Trefoil replacing the performance logo, and have been rated as highly as the home shirt.
The champions’ shirt, priced
At £85 the 2026/27 home replica is level with Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City and £5 below Chelsea. Name and number printing for Saka, the most requested name at the club shop since his World Cup, adds around £20, and the gold champions’ patch on the sleeve is included on shirts sold from the start of the season. The authentic version, in adidas’s lightest fabric, is priced above £110 and is the shirt seen on the players rather than in the stands.
Why the template endures
Chapman’s design has survived because it does two things at once. It is simple enough to be drawn by a child and distinctive enough that no other major club has dared to copy it in England. Red and white shirts are everywhere; red bodies with white sleeves belong to Arsenal. The manufacturers who have done best with the shirt, adidas in 1989 and again now, are the ones who left the template alone and worked at the edges: the collar, the trim, the shade of red.
The 2025/26 shirt joins a short list, 1971, 1989, 2004, of Arsenal designs that mean something beyond the design. Supporters who bought it in August did so hoping; the ones buying it now know. For the latest Premier League news, analysis and kit stories, visit our homepage.
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