Umbro Is Now a Really Good Streetwear Brand (Again)
Here in America, Umbro might be recognized as a sportswear brand and, even then, if it's even recognized at all. In most of the rest of the world, though, Umbro is a household name.
Blame the lack of enthusiasm we yanks have for soccer. Er, football.
But even where it was never not a big deal, Umbro's status as a symbol of youth culture, of streetwear, has fluctuated over the years.
It's not a matter of relevance; Umbro is a perpetual cornerstone of football culture. If anything, I suppose it comes down to stylishness. Or lack thereof.
Save for its street culture heyday in the '90s — when Umbro was a bonafide streetwear icon thanks to the same football fanaticism that birthed Stone Island mania — and a few gentle stabs at making inroads — a 2007 collaboration with a buzzy young designer named Kim Jones, a recent-ish Palace team-up — Umbro has always mostly done what it does best: sports gear for sports people.
Over in Japan, Umbro has taken a slightly different tact.
Though football still comes first, Umbro Japan has a bit more fashion savvy because it's operated by Japanese outdoors giant Descente and, thus, has more willingness to tap into fashionable domestic brands like Comoli and BoTT.
Otherwise, Umbro's streak of lowercase-f fashion is really only broken when it — or its iconography — is adopted by football-conscious luxury labels and the people who wear them. There's certainly at least some Umbro flavor in the semi-ironic football-adjacent hooliganisms of Balenciaga and Acne Studios.
But what of Umbro itself? Where's its streetwear flowers?
Finally, Italian cultural kingmaker Slam Jam has stepped in to correct things.
Slam Jam launched a curated Umbro collection, Penalty Culture, in early 2024, a few months after it gave the world a taste of what was to come with its own Umbro kit.
Ardent Umbro admirers took notice, because of course they did, but the wider wave did not crest until Penalty Culture's second drop on April 3, which ricocheted through the world of footie fashion like a blast from Erling Haaland.
Here is everything Umbro could've ever epitomized at its most stylish, clothes that're refreshingly adventurous while remaining deeply rooted in its heritage, styled and shot like the kind of droolworthy clobber typically issued by Umbro's sportswear rivals.
Borrowing cues from contemporary hotness like Kiko Kostadinov but not going so far as to fail the pub test: this stuff isn't merely good, it's great; a total and worthy reinvention of Umbro's good name.
Slam Jam retooled classic jerseys in monochrome, yielding brutalist statement pieces; it recut a classic track jacket into a harrington that feels like the sort of layering piece thrifters can only dream of; it cut hoodies wider and shorter, slightly shrinking that slick diamond logo; it created an all-time Umbro grail in a plaid kangaroo-pocketed overshirt that hides a built-in mask inside its hood.
These are the progressive clothes of an alternate-dimension Umbro and they're too good to last.
Over a half-dozen Penalty Culture pieces were already sold out on Slam Jam's web store and most other stockists within hours of the release. And there's still more yet to come (and sell out), like a $338 cargo-pocketed jacket fitted with its own mask-hood and a $284 garment-dyed coat, which are both so emphatically cool that you might forget that they're made by a football brand.
But they are, though it your granddad's Umbro. Maybe your dad's Umbro.
